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Article 1: Redistricting


vcczar

Redistricting  

16 members have voted

  1. 1. Select all the proposals below that you support

    • The state governments have full authority in drawing and redrawing district lines for US Districts **Default win if no other proposal passes**
    • Districts are drawn by an independent, non-partisan group
    • Districts are drawn by a bipartisan state group
    • Gerrymandering is illegal (Districts cannot be redrawn with the purpose of gaining an electoral advantage by the party in charge of redestricting)
    • US Census districts, which are non-partisan, will be used to redistrict and cannot be broken in half, although they can connect with another census district.
    • Redistricting can only be done when a state gains or loses a US Rep or if illegal redistricting has been proven.
    • Redistricting can be done whenever the state legislature calls for redistricting
    • The US House will be in charge of voting on redistricting plans for US House districts.


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6 minutes ago, Zenobiyl said:

Non-partisan groups will eventually become partisan one way or another, you can’t fully trust them. You know what you can trust? Math. Use mathematical formulas to draw districts.

Wish you had proposed that. It's too late now. It could be part of the protocol for non-partisan. 

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13 minutes ago, Zenobiyl said:

Non-partisan groups will eventually become partisan one way or another, you can’t fully trust them. You know what you can trust? Math. Use mathematical formulas to draw districts.

UK seems to handle their districting fine...

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16 minutes ago, Pringles said:

UK seems to handle their districting fine...

Look at the 2015 UK general election. David Cameron won a MAJORITY of the seats with 37% of the popular vote. That is not working fine. That is insanity.

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2 minutes ago, Zenobiyl said:

Look at the 2015 UK general election. David Cameron won a MAJORITY of the seats with 37% of the popular vote. That is not working fine. That is insanity.

So your qualm isn't necessarily with the way districting is done, it's the way districts are decided in an election. Which of course, is FPTP. 

There's been slimmer majorities, and even more odd victories throughout the history of the UK. 

If the fight for PR in the UK ever succeeds, I wish it well. I personally think the UK, when it comes to drawing the districts themselves, in general does it very well. They're a non-partisan group that handles it just fine. 

Things often get skewed when larger third parties cause a vote split, which were big cases in 2015, and 2019. 

If we're going to have distaste for 37% of the popular vote... why don't we look at all British PMS of the 21st and 20th century who won with a plurality of the popular vote. 😛 

And yes, that is literally every British PM since Stanley Baldwin. 

The point is, the British system is meant to be this way, in my opinion. 

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50 minutes ago, Zenobiyl said:

Non-partisan groups will eventually become partisan one way or another, you can’t fully trust them. You know what you can trust? Math. Use mathematical formulas to draw districts.

Mathematical formulas reflect the biases of their creators

Each state should hold one big jungle primary style election with the the top X vote getters elected to congress, where X = the number of seats allotted to that state.  For example in Virginia the top 11 vote getters would be elected.

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10 minutes ago, pilight said:

Mathematical formulas reflect the biases of their creators

Each state should hold one big jungle primary style election with the the top X vote getters elected to congress, where X = the number of seats allotted to that state.  For example in Virginia the top 11 vote getters would be elected.

I feel like there could be some serious flaws to this, but I'll have to think about it more.

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42 minutes ago, vcczar said:

I feel like there could be some serious flaws to this, but I'll have to think about it more.

Off the top of my head, you could have a TX-06 type situation where we get 100 Democrats and 50 Republicans, or vice-versa, which leads to one party splitting their votes noticeably more than the other and having disproportionate representation as a result.

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5 minutes ago, Rezi said:

Off the top of my head, you could have a TX-06 type situation where we get 100 Democrats and 50 Republicans, or vice-versa, which leads to one party splitting their votes noticeably more than the other and having disproportionate representation as a result.

Are you in TX? I was born in Dallas but also lived in Austin, San Marcos, Plano, and Richardson. Was in Dallas the longest but I think of myself more as a San Marcos or Austin person since that’s where I was for college and grad school. 

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13 minutes ago, vcczar said:

Are you in TX? I was born in Dallas but also lived in Austin, San Marcos, Plano, and Richardson. Was in Dallas the longest but I think of myself more as a San Marcos or Austin person since that’s where I was for college and grad school. 

No, Upstate New York. I just paid attention to the special election and was rather annoyed by the lack of cohesion within the democratic strategy (not helped by the DNC spending $0 on the race) which led to getting locked out of the run-off which was at least winnable on paper, even if the circumstances made Susan Wright practically unbeatable.

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1 hour ago, Rezi said:

Off the top of my head, you could have a TX-06 type situation where we get 100 Democrats and 50 Republicans, or vice-versa, which leads to one party splitting their votes noticeably more than the other and having disproportionate representation as a result.

It's up to the parties to control their members.

It could also work with X different at-large seats being contested, although asking people in California to vote in 50+ different congressional races at a time would be burdensome.

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2 hours ago, pilight said:

Mathematical formulas reflect the biases of their creators

Each state should hold one big jungle primary style election with the the top X vote getters elected to congress, where X = the number of seats allotted to that state.  For example in Virginia the top 11 vote getters would be elected.

As long as the formula is publicly available for all to read and judge, this is an irrelevant concern.

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21 hours ago, Zenobiyl said:

Look at the 2015 UK general election. David Cameron won a MAJORITY of the seats with 37% of the popular vote. That is not working fine. That is insanity.

Well, I guess the right wing vote got compensated because 12% voted for UKIP, but it got only 1 seat.

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Redistricting should be done after each census, to maintain an approximately equal number of population in each congressional district within a state.

I certainly support a independent non-partisan group making the census -- but where do these people come from, how are they appointed/confirmed, how is non-partisanship defined and identified?

 

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