Voting Theory
- Thread starter nitro
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Are you saying Gerrymandering favors republicans because democrats all seem to congregate in large cities?
That is an interesting point, but it obfuscates rather than illuminates. I think Gerrymandering is a double edged sword, and btw used criminally over the years by both D's and R's.
I am not certain, but my current [naive] theory is that the conflation of people helps Rs in the district races (Rs seem to migrate to suburbs), but helps Ds in the general (Ds seem to migrate to big cities). The difference is that, on one hand accumulation in cities is a natural exodus to where the jobs are. The other a cheap dirty trick.
Your equivalence is intellectually broken.
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Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn't Count 1st Edition
by David Daley (Author)
Lauded as a “compelling” (The New Yorker) and “eye-opening tour of a process that many Americans never see” (Washington Post), David Daley’s Ratf**ked documents the effort of Republican legislators and political operatives to hack American democracy through an audacious redistricting plan called REDMAP. Since the revolutionary election of Barack Obama, a group of GOP strategists has devised a way to flood state races with a gold rush of dark money, made possible by Citizens United, in order to completely reshape Congress―and our democracy itself. “Sobering and convincing” (New York Review of Books), Ratf**ked shows how this program has radically altered America’s electoral map and created a firewall in the House, insulating the Republican party and its wealthy donors from popular democracy. While exhausted voters recover from a grueling presidential election, a new Afterword from the author explores the latest intense efforts by both parties, who are already preparing for the next redistricting cycle in 2020. 5 maps
by David Daley (Author)
Lauded as a “compelling” (The New Yorker) and “eye-opening tour of a process that many Americans never see” (Washington Post), David Daley’s Ratf**ked documents the effort of Republican legislators and political operatives to hack American democracy through an audacious redistricting plan called REDMAP. Since the revolutionary election of Barack Obama, a group of GOP strategists has devised a way to flood state races with a gold rush of dark money, made possible by Citizens United, in order to completely reshape Congress―and our democracy itself. “Sobering and convincing” (New York Review of Books), Ratf**ked shows how this program has radically altered America’s electoral map and created a firewall in the House, insulating the Republican party and its wealthy donors from popular democracy. While exhausted voters recover from a grueling presidential election, a new Afterword from the author explores the latest intense efforts by both parties, who are already preparing for the next redistricting cycle in 2020. 5 maps
Trump Administration Stirs Alarm Over Voter Purges
Larry Harmon, 60, hadn't voted in a while when he drove to the high school in November 2015 to weigh in on a local referendum in Kent, Ohio. But he wasn't allowed to cast his ballot.
"I served in the military and they tell us, 'Oh, you're fighting for freedom.'" he said. "Then you come back and you're taken off the voter rolls because you didn't vote for two elections? That doesn't make sense. I thought that was our right."
Thanks to six years of inactivity — and a single piece of unanswered mail asking him to confirm his voter registration — Harmon, now a plaintiff in a major voter purge lawsuit before the Supreme Court, was removed from Ohio's voter rolls.
"I've been paying my taxes, paying my property taxes, registering my car," he said. "All the data was there for (election officials) to know that I was there."
Harmon was a casualty of the latest voting battleground: How America's lists of registered, eligible voters are maintained.
The rolls are messy, due to deaths as well as those who move between states and neglect to unregister from their past place of residence. Both sides of the debate say something should be done to ensure greater accuracy.
But voting rights advocates have expressed increased anxiety over how some states, like Ohio, have aggressively pruned their voter rolls in the name of preventing widespread, yet still unproven, voter fraud. Those advocates say voter purges require a surgeon's scalpel and argue that aggressive purges suppress mostly minority and Democratic votes.
Thanks to President Donald Trump's voter fraud commission and a Justice Department memo signaling his administration's desire to take action on voter roll maintenance, they fear even more eligible voters will be at risk.
In June, the DOJ alarmed advocates by sending a letter to 44 states — those covered by the National Voter Registration Act, which the Justice Department enforces — asking for details on their purge processes.
"This is a prelude to setting up voter purging," said Vanita Gupta, who during the Obama administration was head of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, which houses voting rights enforcement.
Still, conservatives say messy voter rolls create opportunities for fraud...
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...alarm-over-voter-purges/ar-AApwdeb?li=BBnb7Kz
Larry Harmon, 60, hadn't voted in a while when he drove to the high school in November 2015 to weigh in on a local referendum in Kent, Ohio. But he wasn't allowed to cast his ballot.
"I served in the military and they tell us, 'Oh, you're fighting for freedom.'" he said. "Then you come back and you're taken off the voter rolls because you didn't vote for two elections? That doesn't make sense. I thought that was our right."
Thanks to six years of inactivity — and a single piece of unanswered mail asking him to confirm his voter registration — Harmon, now a plaintiff in a major voter purge lawsuit before the Supreme Court, was removed from Ohio's voter rolls.
"I've been paying my taxes, paying my property taxes, registering my car," he said. "All the data was there for (election officials) to know that I was there."
Harmon was a casualty of the latest voting battleground: How America's lists of registered, eligible voters are maintained.
The rolls are messy, due to deaths as well as those who move between states and neglect to unregister from their past place of residence. Both sides of the debate say something should be done to ensure greater accuracy.
But voting rights advocates have expressed increased anxiety over how some states, like Ohio, have aggressively pruned their voter rolls in the name of preventing widespread, yet still unproven, voter fraud. Those advocates say voter purges require a surgeon's scalpel and argue that aggressive purges suppress mostly minority and Democratic votes.
Thanks to President Donald Trump's voter fraud commission and a Justice Department memo signaling his administration's desire to take action on voter roll maintenance, they fear even more eligible voters will be at risk.
In June, the DOJ alarmed advocates by sending a letter to 44 states — those covered by the National Voter Registration Act, which the Justice Department enforces — asking for details on their purge processes.
"This is a prelude to setting up voter purging," said Vanita Gupta, who during the Obama administration was head of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, which houses voting rights enforcement.
Still, conservatives say messy voter rolls create opportunities for fraud...
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...alarm-over-voter-purges/ar-AApwdeb?li=BBnb7Kz
I always thought how silly it was for young George Bush to be running around telling folks we were democracy building in Iraq after he could no longer find buyers for the WMD argument. Wouldn't it make sense for silly George to try out democracy for himself first to see if he liked it before forcing it on people he'd never met?
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Both parties are guilty of Gerrymandering whenever the opportunity was there. It is probably safe to say that Republican Gerrymandering to create safe House districts is as bad now as it has ever been, but democrats too Gerrymandered in the past whenever they could. We desperately need the courts to weigh-in on constitutional grounds and force an equitable method of districting on the States.
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Among our three Branches of Federal Government, only the Senate is elected democratically. This is reflected in the many close Senate votes on issues divided along party lines. Whichever party is in control at the moment tries to tailor Senate rules to undo as much lingering democracy as they can get away with without risking punitive backlash following the next election.
It seems to us citizens that there is always a next election looming over the heads of our Senators. Senators appear to be perpetually running for office. In reality, only one third of the Senators are running in the Next election which is always two years or less away. However given the close nature of democratic elections, the Senate is more or less continuously subject to a shift in power. This certainly must be helping keep each Senator on their toes. Senators, because they run at-large, must respect the general Will of the people within their State. As the general Will within States is more likely to reflect the National Will than is the Will of the majority party within Gerrymandered districts, the Senate is more likely to reflect the National Will than the House.
In the House, where Gerrymandering has left hardly a vestige of democracy, the members may safely ignore the Collective Will of their individual State's populations. They need only respect the Will of their Gerrymandered district, which in general will reflect one political party or the other.
Each of us, by contrasting our Senate with our House can compare democracy, with all its inefficiencies and difficulties in reaching a consensus, with something else that we may, as yet, not have an appropriate name for. From your own perspective, which imperfection do you prefer, that which remains to be named, or democracy?
The contrast between House and Senate is just one thing for us to contemplate. We know that reluctance of the individual States to cede power to the Federal Government in 1792 eventually gave us fifty different sets of laws each with a common core of Federal statutes, often irregularly heeded, cobbled together by one Constitution. Now imagine what would happen if our laws were the same in every State! If they were, we might have to move to France to get away from Mississippi -- and that would entail learning another language. As it is, we need only move to Colorado. And there they know what Yes Ma'am, No Ma'am and Y'all means.
It seems to us citizens that there is always a next election looming over the heads of our Senators. Senators appear to be perpetually running for office. In reality, only one third of the Senators are running in the Next election which is always two years or less away. However given the close nature of democratic elections, the Senate is more or less continuously subject to a shift in power. This certainly must be helping keep each Senator on their toes. Senators, because they run at-large, must respect the general Will of the people within their State. As the general Will within States is more likely to reflect the National Will than is the Will of the majority party within Gerrymandered districts, the Senate is more likely to reflect the National Will than the House.
In the House, where Gerrymandering has left hardly a vestige of democracy, the members may safely ignore the Collective Will of their individual State's populations. They need only respect the Will of their Gerrymandered district, which in general will reflect one political party or the other.
Each of us, by contrasting our Senate with our House can compare democracy, with all its inefficiencies and difficulties in reaching a consensus, with something else that we may, as yet, not have an appropriate name for. From your own perspective, which imperfection do you prefer, that which remains to be named, or democracy?
The contrast between House and Senate is just one thing for us to contemplate. We know that reluctance of the individual States to cede power to the Federal Government in 1792 eventually gave us fifty different sets of laws each with a common core of Federal statutes, often irregularly heeded, cobbled together by one Constitution. Now imagine what would happen if our laws were the same in every State! If they were, we might have to move to France to get away from Mississippi -- and that would entail learning another language. As it is, we need only move to Colorado. And there they know what Yes Ma'am, No Ma'am and Y'all means.
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