Rather than voters choosing their representatives, gerrymandering empowers politicians to choose their voters. This tends to occur especially when line drawing is left to legislatures and one political party controls the process, as has become increasingly common. When that happens, partisan concerns almost invariably take precedence over all else. That produces maps where electoral results are virtually guaranteed even in years where the party drawing maps has a bad year.
Gerrymandering has a real impact on the balance of power in Congress and many state legislatures.
On the state level, gerrymandering has also led to significant partisan bias in maps. For example, in 2018, Democrats in Wisconsin won every statewide office and a majority of the statewide vote, but thanks to gerrymandering, won only 36 of the 99 seats in the state assembly.
Gerrymandering affects all Americans, but its most significant costs are borne by communities of color.
Targeting the political power of communities of color is also often a key element of partisan gerrymandering. This is especially the case in the South, where white Democrats are a comparatively small part of the electorate and often live, problematically from the standpoint of a gerrymanderer, very close to white Republicans. Even with slicing and dicing, discriminating against white Democrats only moves the political dial so much. Because of residential segregation, it is much easier for map drawers to pack or crack communities of color to achieve maximum political advantage.
True that. Yet you still see either party win the elections. In Russia, however? 80% goes to Putin and United Russia. Every. Single. Time.
Even if the people you swap out are corrupt. It’s no comparison to how blatantly corrupt a person can be when he knows he’ll be in power on practically every election cycle.
Yet you still see either party win the elections. In Russia, however? 80% goes to Putin and United Russia. Every. Single. Time.
Russia uses the same tricks to constrain participatory democracy as Florida or Texas. Even when a Democrat can win at the local level, the gerrymandered legislature steps in to gut the local government of authority (as Abbott did when he seized HISD).
Yes, you get to do the thing we call voting. But no, you don’t get to participate in government.
It’s no comparison to how blatantly corrupt a person can be when he knows he’ll be in power on practically every election cycle
Tell Ken Paxton. Tell Rick Scott. Tell Tim Moore or Chris Kapenga. These are people in office who literally cannot lose, as the state election system operates.
If Republicans manage to move us to “EC votes by House seats” system, they’ll have effectively gerrymandered the Presidency. Then there’s no way for a Dem to ever win, shy of some absurd lopsided 70/30 election.
And even if the Dem DOES win, it’s basically a wash whether it is even a win since those are the same democrats that are in lockstep behind the commodification of healthcare, for profit education, real estate, police militarization, military industrial complex, banking, global shipping, and SO many more industries I failed to mention.
“Russia uses the same tricks to constrain participatory democracy as Florida or Texas.”
Now imagine Texas is the entirety of US, where
in some very specific cities you get over 100% participation rate where everybody votes for incumbent whereas the rest of them have like 30-40% with expected vote distribution to boot.
Oh, and “electronic voting” (via the internet) where the incumbent always gets 90% of the votes with no way to verify the results.
None of the participants are actually independent, and the ones that were are now either jailed or killed.
And you have no way to protest the results, because
it’s against the law (despite the law contradicting constitution)
the protest will get immediately shut down by the police
every organizer will get jailed
And no, courts will not help. They will always side the government. No matter how ridiculous the accusations are.
That’s Russia.
Edit: Forgot to mention that out electoral system is more straightforward, so it doesn’t allow for gerrymandering. So it’s not even distribution manipulation it’s straight up the half of bulletins are fake.
Gerrymandering is manipulation of electoral results using differently drawn district maps. Russia doesn’t use districts to decide winners in each one. Instead, all of the votes are combined. Think of it as a one massive district. Whoever gets majority in that one district wins the elections. In this system votes are always proportionate to electorate, therefore gerrymandering cannot physically happen.
Instead, Russia’s incumbent uses other ways of electoral fraud. Main ones I have already listed.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/gerrymandering-explained
True that. Yet you still see either party win the elections. In Russia, however? 80% goes to Putin and United Russia. Every. Single. Time.
Even if the people you swap out are corrupt. It’s no comparison to how blatantly corrupt a person can be when he knows he’ll be in power on practically every election cycle.
Russia uses the same tricks to constrain participatory democracy as Florida or Texas. Even when a Democrat can win at the local level, the gerrymandered legislature steps in to gut the local government of authority (as Abbott did when he seized HISD).
Yes, you get to do the thing we call voting. But no, you don’t get to participate in government.
Tell Ken Paxton. Tell Rick Scott. Tell Tim Moore or Chris Kapenga. These are people in office who literally cannot lose, as the state election system operates.
If Republicans manage to move us to “EC votes by House seats” system, they’ll have effectively gerrymandered the Presidency. Then there’s no way for a Dem to ever win, shy of some absurd lopsided 70/30 election.
And even if the Dem DOES win, it’s basically a wash whether it is even a win since those are the same democrats that are in lockstep behind the commodification of healthcare, for profit education, real estate, police militarization, military industrial complex, banking, global shipping, and SO many more industries I failed to mention.
“Russia uses the same tricks to constrain participatory democracy as Florida or Texas.”
Now imagine Texas is the entirety of US, where
And no, courts will not help. They will always side the government. No matter how ridiculous the accusations are.
That’s Russia.
Edit: Forgot to mention that out electoral system is more straightforward, so it doesn’t allow for gerrymandering. So it’s not even distribution manipulation it’s straight up the half of bulletins are fake.
Over half of Trump’s cabinet is from Florida
That’s absolutely false
That’s not the point
Explain how.
Gerrymandering is manipulation of electoral results using differently drawn district maps. Russia doesn’t use districts to decide winners in each one. Instead, all of the votes are combined. Think of it as a one massive district. Whoever gets majority in that one district wins the elections. In this system votes are always proportionate to electorate, therefore gerrymandering cannot physically happen.
Instead, Russia’s incumbent uses other ways of electoral fraud. Main ones I have already listed.