Pennsylvania's Supreme Court Throws Out the State's Gerrymandered Map

lol

 

GOP gerrymandering will persist in perverting elections in the GOP's favour, at least until 2020.

... and the emerging Democratic majority may well not be turning out as assuredly as will the geezers:

​

 

How can you know which boundaries are "fair?"

 

Good. Even though I oppose gerrymandering, it makes no sense for the GOP to obey the rules and do whats right when the Democrats will do whatever it takes to win including lying and breaking the law.

Time to fight fire with fire. Time for the GOP to play by the same rules as the proggies.

 

The Wisconsin case before the Supreme Court attempts to answer this question, at least in terms of the political gerrymandering, through a computer model that attempts to analyze the "wasted vote." Essentially, you start by remembering that you only need 50% + 1 vote to win a district. As such, all of the 49% votes are wasted. Gerrymandering works by attempting to pack as many of those wasted votes into one district - so that you can have, for example, a Wisconsin State which votes for Democrats on a statewide basis by around 53-47, but 9 of the 13 districts go to the Republicans.

And so you count those votes up and set up a threshold beyond which the statistics tells you that the only way you sequester that many wasted votes is through political gerrymandering. You can read all about their research and methodology here:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-math-behind-gerrymandering-and-wasted-votes/

 

We have computer programs now that can compute that. Also, many states already have independent commissions that draw districts and they have very fair boundaries. We should ban politicians from being gerrymandering because it violates the will of the people.

 

How?

The new map would only shift the seats (using the 2016 election results) from a 13-5 split in favor Republicans to an 11-7 split in favor of Republicans.

No, the only thing creating a gerrymander situation in favor of Democrats is Donald Trump.

 

I asked how you know they are fair.

And there is no "will of the people." If there were, they wouldn't vote differently.

 

Seems to me you will likely get as convoluted districts implementing this scheme.

Perhaps the Democrats could try running more appealing candidates, if they want to win elections. They won that way in PA recently.

 

Convoluted districts are not the problem. It is the intentional sequestering of political factions in order to maximize your parties' chances of success that creates a problem.

 

The GOP could lose the popular vote by 3 times the margin that Trump did and still keep the House.

That is a prime example of unfair gerrymandering.

 

Not at all. The election system is not setup to only count the popular vote.

 

Yeah, but the way the system is set up is ****ing bullshit and that's the point

 

Compared to shithole countries, I agree.

 

so should elections be decided by the popular vote or not

 

So could the Democrats if they ran more appealing candidates.

 

Checks and balances dear.....

 

if you were to carefully reread my post you would notice that i asked you a yes or no question

 

If you reread my post you will see I am saying yes and no. Yes we need to go by popular vote but we also need electoral votes as well.

 

Okay, so when is it acceptable for the popular vote not to decide an election?

 

When the electoral does.

 

Of course. Those were the rules we elect under. If the popular vote counted then election strategies would be different. It is not unlikely that Trump could have won the popular vote if he campaigned differently.

 

And what circumstances justify the electoral vote deciding an election? I'm asking for an ethical justification here, not a description of what conditions trigger such an outcome.

 

Ethical reason? Sure, to avoid "mob rule".

 

And how does the electoral vote prevent that without suffocating democracy?