Gerrymandering should be outlawed and the Electoral College repealed

Discussion in 'Elections & Campaigns' started by LafayetteBis, May 19, 2017.

  1. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    From here: New Report: Extreme Partisan Maps Account for 16-17 Republican Seats in Congress

    Excerpt:
    We just elected a PotUS who lost the popular-vote by a significantly large margin (2%), the sixth time in the nation's history when the popular-vote has been overturned. This is a travesty of democratic justice. Trump was elected by an Electoral College which is non-proportional; that is, based upon "one winner takes all, despite the respective popular-vote amounts".

    Yes, everybody has an excuse for what has been happening in American politics since the 14th Amendment was instituted in 1803 and gerrymandering began in the very beginning of the nation (but earned its name in 1812 in Boston). A just nation needs neither if it believes in electoral voting that is fair and honest - one person, one vote and only the total determines the elected winner.

    Both mechanisms, along with unlimited money donations, have corrupted American democracy; and in this latest election allowed a wholly inept PotUS to inhabit the White House.

    The US is on the wrong path for as long as Americans refuse to take action, and fix the nation's archaic electioneering mechanism ...
     
    Jun likes this.
  2. btthegreat

    btthegreat Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 30, 2010
    Messages:
    16,379
    Likes Received:
    7,057
    Trophy Points:
    113
    I am on your team, but I am not holding my breath.
     
    VietVet likes this.
  3. Hoosier8

    Hoosier8 Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Jan 16, 2012
    Messages:
    107,541
    Likes Received:
    34,488
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Why would we want just California to pick a President?
     
    Hotdogr and RedDirtWalker like this.
  4. AGWisFAKEsillyBABYKILLERS

    AGWisFAKEsillyBABYKILLERS Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 14, 2017
    Messages:
    1,321
    Likes Received:
    877
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Good thing we wrote that constitution..
     
  5. CourtJester

    CourtJester Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 1, 2013
    Messages:
    27,769
    Likes Received:
    4,921
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Nonsense. The founding fathers appear to have been reasonably intelligent.
     
  6. Andrew Jackson

    Andrew Jackson Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 1, 2016
    Messages:
    48,452
    Likes Received:
    32,206
    Trophy Points:
    113
    The last 20 years of partisan Gerrymandering (by GOP state legislatures) has been the most egregious in American history.
     
    jack4freedom likes this.
  7. bigfella

    bigfella Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 15, 2016
    Messages:
    7,505
    Likes Received:
    8,671
    Trophy Points:
    113
    I'm not interested in debating the Electoral College, but gerrymandering is a cancer to democracy. It is the antithesis of a democratic system. Entrenching one party's control of particular areas and reducing the number of seats that it is reasinably possible to change at any given election is dangerous.

    Gerrymandering & malaportionment were widespread in Australia at state level for generations & was really only fixed n the 80s (and in some cases much later). We used independent electoral commissions whose job it is to redraw boundaries so that 1) all seats are within a particular range of the desired size; 2) seats are redrawn so that, overall, the vote received corresponds to the number of seats won. Political parties can challenge particular decisions & the challenge may end up in the courts. While this is an inexact formula it has been successful in avoiding political parties dominating either at state or Federal level if their share of the vote does not reflect that.

    I understand that America can't exactly repeat our method for constitutional reasons, but something needs to be done for the sake of representative democracy. Political parties can't be allowed to control this.
     
  8. Cal-Pak

    Cal-Pak Active Member

    Joined:
    Dec 5, 2006
    Messages:
    813
    Likes Received:
    243
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Voter suppression.
    I think dealing with that would help to alleviate both problems you addressed.
     
  9. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    California alone does not pick the president. The nation of electors vote for the PotUS.

    Ever take Civics classes in high-school?

    Apparently not ...
     
  10. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    THE U.S. IS A "FLAWED DEMOCRACY"?

    Frankly, what any individual cares about in a national vote is irrelevant. What matters, and it is the only result that matters, is the total numerical vote for the presidency as demonstrated by a popular-vote.

    If this last election has taught us anything - along with that of Al Gore's loss in the same manner in 2000 - it is that American elections are falsified. Only the Popular Vote is a valid demonstration of the people's will in a democratic election. (How would you like a referendum on abortion be decided by the Electoral College?)

    Both gerrymandering and the archaic Electoral College have to go - and until they have gone, America is not the "Greatest Democracy on Earth". In fact, when the proper democracy-criteria are applied, it is far from that distinction.

    For instance, consider this from The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index:
    *Go to Index by clicking on the above link
    *Select the "United States"
    *See the result. The US is considered (against the criteria selected) as a "Flawed Democracy".

    Now tell me how the Economist has "got that all wrong" ....
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2017
    VietVet likes this.
  11. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    A better thing would be if we adapted the Constitution to the reality of today, instead of keeping it anchored in a time that is now 228 years old. We are living with an archaic document that is cracking at the seams in a country that has "manipulated" the voting process.

    It is wrong, wrong, wrong - and all the talk about the "Greatest Nation on Earth" is BS until we make it correct, correct, correct. (And not just an instrument of the Reactionary Right, Right, Right.)
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2017
    Just_a_Citizen likes this.
  12. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Yes, it just depends upon what is meant by "voter suppression".

    The fact that "first past the post takes all votes" in the Electoral College is not just "suppression" of the national electoral will, it is also "manipulation" ...
     
  13. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Indeed, but they were looking at the world as it existed in their time. One that was for the most part "monarchic". The notion of "fair voting" for one's political leadership was a New Idea that had just been born.

    And not just in the US. The gestation of "freedom" was also the fruit of a friendship with French individuals who met with Franklin, Jefferson (and others) in Paris in the 1770s. They met at a restaurant called "Le Procope", which is still there and worth the visit to anyone interested in the origins of our "founding-fathers seminal thoughts" that would be the foundational basis for Freedom around the world.
     
  14. bigfella

    bigfella Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 15, 2016
    Messages:
    7,505
    Likes Received:
    8,671
    Trophy Points:
    113
    You are arguing with the wrong guy.

    My focus is on gerrymandering in its many variations because the system I am most familiar with - Australia's - has had to deal with it & has done so successfully.

    I am not interested enough or informed enough on the EC to get into an online fight about it. I'm sure you can find others quite happy to do so. I can think of a number of occasions where government in Australia has been formed by a party or parties with a smaller amount of the vote than the opposition got, so I'm not especially hung up on that. I'm sure you can find someone who is to chat with. I'm sticking to gerrymandering.
     
  15. Jimmy79

    Jimmy79 Banned

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2014
    Messages:
    9,366
    Likes Received:
    5,074
    Trophy Points:
    113

    We already have 51 popular votes. Why do you want less?

    Can you explain how changing the rules for the way votes are counted will affect voter turnout?


    Just imagine how many millions of votes that will be suppressed in the lightly populated middle America when the only places anyone bothers to campaign are the heavily populated urban areas. When politicans only bother to campaign in urban areas they will craft their policies only for those areas.


    As for gerrymandering, it is a problem. I dont know how to fix it though.
     
    jack4freedom and RedDirtWalker like this.
  16. TheEternalOne

    TheEternalOne Active Member

    Joined:
    Feb 5, 2017
    Messages:
    158
    Likes Received:
    38
    Trophy Points:
    28
    Unfortunately, Democrats would rather find ways to take advantage of these themselves then get rid of them so we're stuck with our votes being meaningless half the time.
     
  17. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    I'm not arguing with anybody. Last time I looked this place was a "debate forum".

    Gerrymandering in not the key problem, but if we are to reform the electoral system it should be included. As my link showed, at most, it accounts for about 17 additional Replicants in the HofR (lower chamber).

    But, whilst we are at it, why not include that mechanism as well, since it has an impact on some local state elections as well.

    OK, so tell us how Australia did it. That is avoid gerrymandering AND institute "one person, one vote" (which is all that "counts"). Did it just vote up a new election law - or redo an existing law ... ?
     
  18. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Believe me, this forum is so far underwater I breath from a tank on my back ... ;)
     
  19. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Look, go back to high-school and take a course in Civics. Learn that the governance of a nation is constituted of three parts, the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial.

    The US is an aggregation of states. Both have political structures that employ plebiscites to elect representatives to their respective legislatures as well as the executive body (Governor or President).

    But the election rules should be all the same everywhere. No gerrymandering or Electoral College is necessary at either the state or national level.

    Period.

    The rules I mentioned above cannot affect voter turnout.

    What does, and it IS employed in many countries, is a tax on those who do not show up at the voting booth. That will require something that the US has not wanted to do for a long, long time. Which is voter identification from birth by means of a national-record. (BigBrother is watching YOU! :shock:)

    Voters can always vote blank ballots if they do not like either choice - but it is a National Duty that they must vote. "Liberty" is not just something one shouts every time the American flag passes by in a parade. It is what we "do" to deserve it.

    I doubt that is at all the problem.

    The problem is that too many Americans have too little sense of Civic Duty - and that is something one learns in High School. See here: Why Civics Is About More Than Citizenship - excerpt:
    Regardless of which of the above "problems" is most true - it is a fact that we have the lowest voter turnout of any developed nation. (See this from Pew Research: U.S. trails most developed countries in voter turnout.)

    Ask yourself why so many people are so ambivalent about the nation's governance - the likely answer is that they had no civics-education regarding the matter. They do not perceive voting as a "duty". (So? That a child must be guarantied such an education - even if it requires a National Law and Funding to do so.)

    Just pass legislation outlawing it for national and state elections? For that to happen, we need a wholly restructured Congress in LaLaLand on the Potomac and a PotUS who would sign the law into existence - so do not expect it any time soon ...
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2017
  20. Deckel

    Deckel Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Nov 2, 2014
    Messages:
    17,608
    Likes Received:
    2,043
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Then the democrats should actually fund candidates to challenge them.

    "In Virginia, a blue state in the last three presidential elections, Democrats have failed even to show up in some races: 44 of the state's 67 Republican delegates ran unopposed in 2015, including three Republicans in districts carried by Hillary Clinton. Democrats have a long way to go to recoup what they lost, but they've also left a lot of low-hanging fruit on the vine."

    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/democrats-candidate-recruitment-run-for-something
     
  21. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Not all is right & proper in the Dem Party.

    Lord knows ...
     
  22. AGWisFAKEsillyBABYKILLERS

    AGWisFAKEsillyBABYKILLERS Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 14, 2017
    Messages:
    1,321
    Likes Received:
    877
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Who is "WE"?
    I thought you lived in France?

    We will not be scrapping our constitution..
     
  23. Hoosier8

    Hoosier8 Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Jan 16, 2012
    Messages:
    107,541
    Likes Received:
    34,488
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Under your scenario they would have.
     
  24. bigfella

    bigfella Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 15, 2016
    Messages:
    7,505
    Likes Received:
    8,671
    Trophy Points:
    113
    A bit of both. High Court interpretations of the constitution led to more regular redrawing of electoral boundaries to reflect population, legislation ensured that the body doing it was independent of Government & apolitical. So, no gerrymanders or malaportionment. We don't have precisely 'one vote one value' in the House of Reps because electorates may vary in size by 10% from the average. No system based on geographic electorates can ever be precise in that respect.

    The result of this is that there are always a good number of seats 'in play' at an election. We have 150 seats. It is quite common for 10% or more of those to change hands at an election - that has happened in half the elections since 1990 (5 out of 10). It is not unheard of for 15%-20% to change hands.
     
  25. AGWisFAKEsillyBABYKILLERS

    AGWisFAKEsillyBABYKILLERS Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 14, 2017
    Messages:
    1,321
    Likes Received:
    877
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Lefties just want to change the rules because they lost..
    And because they know they aren't going to be easily able to disperse their imported voter block throughout the country rather than their current nests which don't help them all that much in elections..

    They want their "educated intellectual" cities to completely overrule our "deplorable flyover country" and couldn't care less what goes on in middle America..
     
    Hotdogr and gc17 like this.

Share This Page