Educate me.....Redistricting "Gerrymandering"

Redistricting or more specifically Gerrymandering is something I don't know much about and I'm wanting to learn.

My understanding - Every 10 years the census is done and based upon that census the number of representatives for the state is determined. It is then up to the state to redo the districts within the state to either add or subtract seat(s). Currently this is usually up to the party in control of the State House of Representatives. So of course it is done in such a way to benefit the party in control at that time.

I have anything wrong at this point?

My thoughts on a different way. Since the reason is based upon population, why not redo only the cities/counties that saw the population change and leave the others alone. So if a major city in a state saw an increase just divide that city up more and only that city.

Am I over simplifying this?

 

Districts gotta have near the same population!

Okay. Imagine - - -
California is going to "redistrict".
Lots of one party live in San Francisco, a small area.
Shall we district San Francisco itself
or divide the district to swing elections in more diverse areas.
Gerrymandering.

Make sense?
Although we would wish districting to be somewhat
mathematical, geometrical, it is vulnerable to borders for political motivations.


Moi

Across an immense, unguarded, ethereal border, Canadians, cool and unsympathetic,
regard our America with envious eyes and slowly and surely draw their plans against us.
One district to Rule Them All,
In the land of Ontario where Ottawa lies.​

 

So my thoughts are yea, just redistrict San Francisco until the districts there equal some of the rural/suburban districts. You might have 50 representatives from Frisco compared to the surrounding 20 of the rural/suburban areas, but Frisco can stay blue all it wants and the rurals can stay red all it wants. Instead of dragging the rurals/suburban into the Frisco districts and not really representing the rural/suburban people.

Just a little finger of a district into a major population area can effect the entire district even if the finger is only 10% area of the district.

Am I still making sense here?

 

No!
Political control in redistricting.
Not done by angels.

 

That's my kind of my point, to have no political control. If all that happens is that a blue districts just gets broken up more, there is less political control as opposed to a red district turning blue because it has a small portion of a large population center blue area.

 

my only gripe is the crazy gerrymandering that it is so bad it's unethical... practically cheating

 

It would seem. That's all, seem.

Hillary was the best candidate because she won the popular-vote. But, the Electoral College decided otherwise?

How did that happen? That question is well-answered here: Not Your Founding Fathers' Electoral College - excerpt:

And here: Misrepresentation In The House
Excerpt -

'Nuff said? Probably not ...

 

To me Gerrymandering is creating un-natural borders to a district. Breaking up a city of 500,000 into 2 halves and mixing it with the suburbs with 700,000 residents. People that live in cities have different demands on a government than people in the burbs, or you go the other way where the city is a larger population than the surrounding suburbs. Where you get a million people in the city and 500,000 in the burbs and you divide the burbs into 2 sections, so that they get no rep.

 

There have been arguments from historical experts that it was intended to be balance the large state small state problem. Like so many things today people will cherry pick information that helps their side and discard the other evidence that does not. Instead of taking all of the evidence into account to full explain the topic an thus point out all reasons.

 

Cherry-pick this: Any real democracy does not eff-around with the popular-vote to the extent that the US does repeatedly ....

 

Gerrymandering goes a LOT further than that.

I once heard that a local elected Massachusetts state representative had two geographies to cover, one nearby Boston the other out in the middle of the state!

Of course, I should not be surprised. Gerrymandering is named after Elbrige Gerry who was governor of Massachusetts and first employed the technique in 1812 ...

 

From the NYT here, June, 2 0 1 8:

Is more really needed than the statistical evidence of the manipulation of the popular-vote ...?

My Answer: Yes! Because successive presidents have stacked the Supreme Court with conservative judges!

 

In California non citizen including 3 to 6 million illegal aliens gets about six Congressional representatives to represent them in Congress.

Those Congressional representatives should actually belong to American citizens in other states.

The Democrats in California's state legislature changed the voting laws to allow Democrats who live in really blue districts or counties like Los Angeles County to register to vote in red districts or counties like Orange County.

But still L.A.County had more registered voters than eligible voters.

 

Not sure who quoted that, but since the US has not been ever a "real" Democracy it's invalid and shows the ignorance of the person that said it.
Again you are cherry picking the language that you want to hear instead of using all of the information available. You have a belief of how the system should run and therefore look for information to specifically support you belief. Instead you should look at all of the information available and attempt to see the reason for the subject in a full contextual manner, as it was intended.

 

The President of the United States is elected by the Electoral College, which in most states always goes with the popular vote of the state in which the people live. This means that the President is elected by a popular vote, but is then screened through the Electoral College for reasons and one of those is to make the vote of the smaller populated states mean something.

If the Democrats are worried about the Electoral College they need to work on getting out of the cities. Just like if the Republicans are tired of losing the popular vote they need to get into the cities.

 

Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.

How many times must I explain on this forum that the Electoral College MANIPULATES the popular-vote by giving the "winner" in the Electoral College ALL THE VOTES.

This changes substantially the vote count and no longer represents the voting intention of the American voter in national presidential elections. Which is how the popular-vote has been manipulated five times in the history of the US to elect the Wrong Person president. The last being the current PotUS, Donald Dork.

One needs to be kinda-sorta stoopid not to understand what is going on as regarding the basic right of any Real Democracy, which is the popular-vote that has been manipulated by both Gerrymandering and the Electoral College in the US for more than two centuries ... !

Democrats are not worried. They are UPSET with the pernicious manipulation of the popular-vote undertaken by Replicants to obtain majorities. Whilst the Supreme Court procrastinates any definite resolution of the problem despite the fact that it has been presented with a case requesting a decision.

Until now - read here:
Supreme Court will hear partisan gerrymandering cases in March - excerpt:

So, let's just wait 'n see. Till that decision is made, YOU are not living in a True Democracy. You are living in a place that is warped by partisan manipulation of the popular-vote ... !

 

Cheery-picking, me arse. Patent nothingness from someone ignorant of what is going on.

The Electoral College is unfair because it manipulates the popular-vote of the American people. Period!

Why is it impossible for some people to understand that simple fact? All developed nations have accepted the unmanipulated, raw popular-vote for a national leader is the only way a real-democracy should function! See here, from Pew Research: Among democracies, U.S. stands out in how it chooses its head of state - excerpt:

Get it? I doubt it. But neither am I reading your asinine commentary any more ... !

 

Do you believe everything you read on the Internet? Evidently so!

From PolitiFact: here:

Better luck next time ... !

 

You keeping using language like popular-vote and True Democracy, like it has every been that way for the Presidential election. It has never been that way in US....ever. We are a Constitutional Republic by design and always have been for the Presidential Election.

If you want to know how a True-Democracy will treat people in the "fly over states" you have to look no further than California. Where half of the counties in the state are clearly conservative in their voting, but have not had a voice in states politics for years. So much so that there is a strong movement to split the state, but the California House will not even entertain a split. This is just a state example of what would happen on a national level.

It always puzzles me how Democrats constantly want to complain about the lack of equality for minorities and talk about it in fairness and yet want to abolish the Electoral College that provides equality/fairness to the minority population in states. Which is it that you want, or do you only want it when it benefits you?

 

The difference between us seems to rest in the version of "Fair". You believe "fair" is to ignore segments of the population that happen to live in low population states. My version of "fair" attempts to give everyone equal voice on the national stage.

I do understand that the Electoral College manipulates the popular vote as a country, but that at a state level it does not. I just believe that to be fair to all people in the country this is the best method available.

 

FiveThirtyEight did several podcasts focused on gerrymandering in numerous locations across the country. They call it “the Gerrymandering project.” This would be a good place to start:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/the-gerrymandering-project/

 

Your source is from the internet.

Better luck next time.

 

You pretty much have it right. After the 2010 census the Democrats gerrymandered the heck out of Illinois and New York while the GOP did the same to North Carolina and Texas. Since people move, die and are born, populations changes all the time. I think having a simple law stating counties must remain whole as possible could decrease gerrymandering. As an example if a state has 2,3 or 4 congressional districts, only one county could be divided up.

Of course the states with more congressional districts and large cities would have to carve up more counties. Using a stubby pencil, the population of the counties, Georgia which has 14 congressional districts, I was able to make all districts come within 5% of the medium by dividing up but 5 of Georgia's 159 counties.

Of course the majority minority districts would have to be taken into consideration which I didn't do.

 

Blah, blah, blah.

Do come back when you have a cogent argument for rebuttal and not ONE-LINER sarcasm !

 

Gerrymandering isn't always bad. It can sometimes be used to give certain minority groups in an area more of a voice than they would otherwise have, if their distribution is randomly divided and drowned out between different districts.

Gerrymandering is also used to make sure specific demographic groups get represented. For example, if there is a middle class area, if you just ignore the boundaries of that middle class area, even if it is irregularly shaped, then some of those middle class people will get cut off from the suburbs and lumped with the city neighborhoods, where their votes will be drowned out. Effectively they won't get representation, because the vast majority of voters within their district don't have views that align with them.