America’s most gerrymandered congressional districts Crimes against geography. This election year we can expect to hear a lot about Congressional district gerrymandering, which is when political parties redraw district boundaries to give themselves an electoral advantage. Gerrymandering is at least partly to blame for the lopsided Republican representation in the House. According to an analysis I did last year, the Democrats are under-represented by about 18 seats in the House, relative to their vote share in the 2012 election. The way Republicans pulled that off was to draw some really, really funky-looking Congressional districts. Contrary to one popular misconception about the practice, the point of gerrymandering isn't to draw yourself a collection of overwhelmingly safe seats. The process of re-drawing district lines to give an advantage to one party over another is called "gerrymandering". The process of re-drawing district lines to give an advantage to one party over another is called "gerrymandering". 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
This computer programmer solved gerrymandering in his spare time Yesterday, I asked readers how they felt about setting up independent commissions to handle redistricting in each state. Commenter Mitch Beales wrote: "It seems to me that an 'independent panel' is about as likely as politicians redistricting themselves out of office. This is the twenty-first century. How hard can it be to create an algorithm to draw legislative districts after each census?" Reader "BobMunck" agreed: "Why do people need to be involved in mapping the districts?" They're right. You can see for yourself how his boundaries look. Here's Maryland, currently the least-compact state in the nation: And here's North Carolina, the second-least compact: Huge differences, yes? Now, some argue that compactness isn't a very good measure of district quality. And therein lies the problem: You can define a "community of interest" pretty much however you want. Wonkbook newsletter Your daily policy cheat sheet from Wonkblog. Please provide a valid email address.
Come vincere le elezioni col gerrymandering Siamo abituati a pensare istintivamente alle elezioni come una cosa che funziona così: chi prende più voti vince. Sappiamo però che salvo poche eccezioni le cose non sono così semplici, e che non è stato ancora trovato un sistema considerato unanimemente il migliore per trasformare i voti in seggi: e infatti ogni paese ha una legge elettorale diversa, e ognuna di quelle leggi è oggetto con una certa frequenza di modifiche o di proposte di riforma. E dato che leggi elettorali diverse possono produrre risultati diversi, a volte queste regole possono essere modificate in modo strumentale, per favorire una parte invece che un’altra. Negli Stati Uniti questa pratica ha un nome ben preciso, e piuttosto strano: gerrymandering. Il gerrymandering è la modifica strumentale dei confini di un collegio elettorale allo scopo di ottenere la maggioranza dei seggi in assenza di una maggioranza di voti. Nonostante la messa in atto del primo gerrymandering della storia, Gerry perse quelle elezioni.
The Electoral College Was Meant to Stop Men Like Trump From Being President Americans talk about democracy like it’s sacred. In public discourse, the more democratic American government is, the better. The people are supposed to rule. But that’s not the premise that underlies America’s political system. Most of the men who founded the United States feared unfettered majority rule. The framers constructed a system that had democratic features. The Bill of Rights is undemocratic. That’s the way the framers wanted it. Donald Trump was not elected on November 8. The Constitution says nothing about the people as a whole electing the president. This ambiguity about how to choose the electors was the result of a compromise. It is “desirable,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 68, “that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of” president. As Michael Signer explains, the framers were particularly afraid of the people choosing a demagogue. In truth, Americans are wedded less to democracy than to familiarity. This makes sense. Related Videos
Voters Not Politicians Sortition, for a better democracy Democracy via lottery What is sortition? A more democratic alternative to elections Sortition is a process to appoint citizens' representatives by using a system of random drawing (like a lottery), akin to what is done for a court's jury. direct access to the power that should belong to them in a democracy A democratic regime that would be based on sortition instead of elections is a "demachy" Actually such a regime had only marginal application in History and is currently nowhere in place. (*) the high level of non-voters is a symptom. This article tries to find out what the sortition would bring so as to answer its growing need, and of course also to identify its limitations. It is an alternative to referenda also This article is not about another well-known alternative to elections: direct democracy through public initiatives leading to referenda. Referenda on such topics can go against balanced policies. Also referenda are costly and not too practical. In what cases?
The Constitution lets the electoral college choose the winner. They should choose Clinton. Lawrence Lessig is a professor at Harvard Law School and the author of “Republic, Lost: Version 2.0.” In 2015, he was a candidate in the Democratic presidential primary. Conventional wisdom tells us that the electoral college requires that the person who lost the popular vote this year must nonetheless become our president. That view is an insult to our framers. It is compelled by nothing in our Constitution. It should be rejected by anyone with any understanding of our democratic traditions — most important, the electors themselves. The framers believed, as Alexander Hamilton put it, that “the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the [president].” Hillary Clinton spoke to supporters, Nov. 9, offering a message of thanks, apology and hope. Hillary Clinton spoke to supporters, Nov. 9, offering a message of thanks, apology and hope. [Don’t blame the electoral college. Many think we should abolish the electoral college. So, do the electors in 2016 have such a reason? opinions
Competitive Congressional Districts This is a proof-of-concept of an idea from Dr. Sam Wang at Princeton Election Consortium to create an app allowing people to enter an address and find nearby competitive Congressional Districts. Competitive districts, shaded in purple, are those defined as Tossup or Lean D or R, by the Cook Political Report. Click on a district for more information. Thanks to Stephen Wolf at Daily Kos Elections for an updated geographic file that incorporates 2015 Florida and Virginia redistricting. Updated Oct. 14. Enter Address, City or Zip Code Search Reset
Le tirage au sort, Jacques Rancière Le texte ci-dessous est un extrait du livre La haine de la démocratie de Jacques Rancière. « Le crime démocratique contre l’ordre de la filiation humaine est d’abord le crime politique, c’est-à-dire simplement l’organisation d’une communauté humaine sans lien avec Dieu le père. À la démocratie, Platon fait deux reproches. Elle est le règne de la loi abstraite, opposée à la sollicitude du médecin ou du pasteur. Les lois de la démocratie prétendent valoir pour tous les cas. Sous le citoyen universel de la constitution démocratique, il nous faut reconnaître l’homme réel, c’est-à-dire l’individu égoïste de la société démocratique.La loi démocratique n’est ainsi pour lui que le bon plaisir du peuple, l’expression de la liberté d’individus qui ont pour seule loi les variations de leur humeur et de leur plaisir, indifférentes à tout ordre collectif. Elle n’est pas seulement le règne des individus faisant tout à leur guise. Tel est le fond du problème. WordPress: J'aime chargement…
$ in Politics: The Top 10 Things Every Voter Should Know As surely as water flows downhill, money in politics flows to where the power is. Individuals and interest groups will give campaign contributions to politicians in the best position to deliver what they're looking for. That means incumbents get vastly more than challengers, committee chairmen and legislative leaders get more than rank-and-file members, and parties in power get more than parties in the minority. Incumbents vs. challengers Interest groups like safe bets, and in the political world nothing is so safe as giving money to a politician who's already in office. Congressional committees In the halls of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., most of the nitty-gritty work of crafting new laws gets done not on the floor of the House or Senate, but at the committee level. Majority vs. minority party When the balance of power changes on Capitol Hill, the contributions from interest groups shift almost immediately to the party in control.
4/4/17: The Mathematics Behind Gerrymandering Quantifying Bizarreness Gerrymanderers rig maps by “packing” and “cracking” their opponents. In packing, you cram many of the opposing party’s supporters into a handful of districts, where they’ll win by a much larger margin than they need. In cracking, you spread your opponent’s remaining supporters across many districts, where they won’t muster enough votes to win. For instance, suppose you’re drawing a 10-district map for a state with 1,000 residents, who are divided evenly between Party A and Party B. Such gerrymanders are sometimes easy to spot: To pick up the right combination of voters, cartographers may design districts that meander bizarrely. Yet it’s one thing to say bizarre-looking districts are suspect, and another thing to say precisely what bizarre-looking means. The Supreme Court justices have “thrown up their hands,” Duchin said. The compactness problem will be a primary focus of the Tufts workshop. The Accidental Gerrymander Wasted Votes The Question of Intent