Ranked Vote: How To Reform Redistricting And End Political Gerrymandering?

FYI, Last Chance to Cast a Vote in the Automation / Job-Loss Voting Thread before results are posted.
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...-long-term-implications-of-automation.534062/

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FYI: Partisan Dysfunction Vote thread has been posted! Now taking additional nominations!
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...duce-partisan-dysfunction-in-politics.535141/

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Partisan Dysfunction Thread is Open for Voting!
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...duce-partisan-dysfunction-in-politics.535141/

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We're not necessarily going for perfection here.
What we're trying to do is to simply come up with something that's better than what we have.
If we by chance happen upon perfection along the way, then let's give ourselves a great big pat on the back.
But never ever let the lack of perfection stand in the way of improving things.

As for the ring method, yes, depending on how we decide the center-point should be determined, it may be possible for a biased map drawer to attempt to reposition that center-point in a way that gives one group or another a slight advantage over others, but do note that their ability to successfully do such a thing under the restrictions of the ring method's rings will be severely limited in comparison to what they can do now. Keep in mind that the population in the area between each ring needs to be about the same. In contrast to being able to draw whatever squiggly line or snaking nonsense as allowed by the current system, a gerrmanderist under ring method would have significantly fewer options for inserting bias into a map where they have to now adhere to these nice consistently curved lines.

Now...on the other hand, it'll be impossible for a map drawer to gerrymander at all if using the square-rectangle method. One cannot just up and arbitrarily move lines around under that method, as there are very well-defined and strict rules for how the lines under that system should be drawn. So to answer your second question,...not only would it be...very hard...to wrap a rectangle around a group based on wealth level,...under square-rectangle algorithm, it would be...again...impossible, unless it just occurred that way by chance.

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We, the people, get to decide that.
Actually, that's sort of what this whole vote is for.
We're deciding here, on what is the best, or fairest, way to rid ourselves of gerrymandered districts.
Obviously our vote here doesn't equate to law, but it gives us a good idea of what the consensus is,
as well as our own individual feelings on the matter. The next step would be to push our politicians
to enact whatever it is we decide on. Though of course, we here at political forum are only a small
subsection of the overall population. The rest of the country should get a say as well.

So....what is your opinion on whats fair? How would you vote in this ranked poll?

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This is why I ranked independent committees above bipartisan councils.

What's the difference between majority rule and mob rule in your view?
And if the majority should not rule, then who or what should?

There is actually an option in the list which is similar to this one. Option G.
Do you want to vote for that? Or would you prefer I mark a more specific 'write-in' down for you?

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It makes since that monkey's would tend to vote for other monkey's. In contrasting that animal example with the real world, keep in mind that the animals themselves are just an abstraction; the different animal species in the video aren't there to represent different species of voter in our world...or even different races. No, the species instead are there to represent more along the lines of voters voting for candidates who merely think the same way they do,...e.g. candidates from the same ideology or political party. But of course, even then one expects some amount of crossover, republicans don't always vote for republicans, liberals don't always vote for other liberals, etc. The fact that the video structures things that way is just a simplification used to make the main point of the video easier to understand. And note, that adding in more realistic crossover doesn't actually change that point.

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You mean nationally? Or statewide? Funnily enough no one nominated anything quite like that, but perhaps its not without good reason. Gerrymandering only comes into play when we're talking about congressional elections after-all (or state level counterparts), which means that even if we do some sort of popular vote for like the president or something...we're still going to need to have some fair way of picking all the house members, right?

Riding ourselves of all the gerrymandering and getting rid of election rigging more broadly is all fine and good of course. Its what this whole thread/vote is about really. But the question is what is the best way to do that? What would you say is the best way, given the list here? How would you rank these options from best to worse when considering which ones did a better job of eliminating the negative effects of gerrymandering??

How To Reform Redistricting And End Political Gerrymandering?:
A. Use Automated Algorithm to Draw Maps Based on Key Principles of Fairness
B. Algorithm: Square-Rectangle Method
C. Algorithm: Shortest Split Line Method
D. Algorithm: Ring Method
E. Algorithm: Ring Method (Quadrant)
F. Algorithm: Ring Method (Multi Segmented)
G. Limit District Lines to County Borders
H. Require Districts to Meet a Complexity Ratio Standard
I. Require Districts to Meet a Proportionality Ratio Standard
J. Use Bipartisan Councils
K. Use Independent Commissions
L. Party-list Proportional Representation
M. Single Transferable Vote
N. Mixed-member Proportional Representation
O. Use Panel-Decided Algorithm + Map Approval by Independent Commission
P. Two District States (Rural/not Rural) + District Level Proportional Vote
Q. Leave Things as They Are (Status Quo Option)
R. Don't Feel Qualified/Knowledgeable Enough To Vote In This Poll
S. No Strong Feelings One Way Or The Other

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Only 3 Votes Here So Far.
Any other folks out there have an opinion on this?

 

I skimmed over these before, but looking at them again they are all great reasons for STV. Like you said, it pretty much covers every single concern that was brought up in the discussion thread...with possible exception of the complexity vs simplicity/easy of understanding one which as pretty much my only reason for not putting it at the top of my ranking list. But that verifiable by everyone part is one that deserves repeating. With a lot of the other methods, you have to have specific demographic and geographic and or population distribution data available to evaluate whether things are being handled fairly for your state. And if you happened to want info on any other state...well good luck! Lol. But with STV, everyone under the same system, no data needed other than what the votes were,...its a much simpler prospect.

Not going to change my vote though, but definitely going to consider STV a lot going forwards.

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Even if I find a perfect option, I always like to rank a bunch of other options below it, for two reasons. One reason is that if other folk don't happen to agree with me on my top pick, the additional rankings at least means I'll still have a say as to which of the other high-rated options ends up winning. Though the way this vote is going, option M is definitely going to win anyway if no one reverses the trend.

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The other reason is that it leads to a nice sorted list, particularly when looking at the RP results. IR and...obviously Plurality....aren't quite as useful when looking past the winner/top option, but IR can be used say if for some reason you found found top options were unworkable for one reason or another...or if you wanted to implement more than one option. With IR, you could basically go right down the result rankings list from top to bottom, confident in the knowledge that higher ranked options regardless of where they were in the list would generally beat every option below them in a one on one contest. Furthermore, it just makes for some interesting statistical take aways too....

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Yeah, STV, its pretty much a perfect solution, in the technical sense, similar to Ranked Pairs.
All the other options are basically different degrees of approximation, like Instant Runoff.
What we have now though...is just a bunch of silliness.....Like Plurality. Lol

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If you want the technically specific answer, I would say that all eligible voters should have the opportunity to be a part of the decision, should they choose to participate. That's fair, right? Eligible voters may have only included wealthy white men in the past, but today the franchise is much more inclusive.

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Maybe so, but got to start somewhere, right?

Besides...aren't you interested in learning about what politicalforum as a community thinks about the issues?

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