# 538's take on gerrymandering (US politics) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 25, 2018, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444 "2018-01-25T13:30:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/21 "2018-01-25T16:03:11Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Well if you agree (as you just did) that proportional representation would be the most fair (even if you don’t like it) then there is a lot of unfairness going on. It is just not primarily a direct result of partisan efforts to be unfair. > > ISTM that extremely convoluted exercises that _attempt_ to create significant partisan advantages should be disallowed even if the impact of such efforts end up being only of moderate impact. We do not make shooting a gun at someone with intent to kill not a crime just because the shooter usually misses. While it’s fair, if you want proportional representation, rigging districts to be competitive doesn’t really get you there except in a strict party sense. But rigging for competitive districts creates another problem that partisans of both sides will hate: both party bases will be disempowered in favor of moderates. Which again, is a positive result in many ways, but not one that the people most interested in politics are likely to want to see. I doubt many Democrats would be cool with 180 Manchins in the House. Republicans would certainly not be thrilled with the possibility of that many Susan Collins types. For what you want, we need to just switch to proportional representation entirely. I don’t support that because I think governments should be run by real people, not political parties. We have a weak party system, where no party member is obligated to vote the party line. A lot of politicians have made a career out of being independents in reality and party members in name only. If we went proportional, parties would submit slates of candidates, which would mean only partisans could be elected. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/22 "2018-01-25T16:06:24Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > But if they admit 538’s data into the testimony, they find that at least nationally there isn’t really much unfairness going on. Utter tripe. You’re saying that current system isn’t horrible because it’s only slightly worse than another system without showing that the other system is fair. The GOP consistently gets more representatives than the percentage of votes should indicate. If compact districts also give that result then they are also not fair, if less unfair than the current district boundaries. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/23 "2018-01-25T16:11:51Z")
It doesn’t necessarily mean that compact districts are unfair _per se_, if the reason the end result is unbalanced is the way representatives are allotted to the states, and that does seem to be part of the issue. Compact districts could very well be the fairest way in the absence of state line considerations, but in order to achieve an overall balance they’d have to be slightly _unfair_ in the other direction. I personally think compactness should be one element to consider since it provides a slight check on blatant gerrymandering. I’m not sure what the whole solution should be though. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/24 "2018-01-25T16:21:19Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Utter tripe. You’re saying that current system isn’t horrible because it’s only slightly worse than another system without showing that the other system is fair. > > The GOP consistently gets more representatives than the percentage of votes should indicate. If compact districts also give that result then they are also not fair, if less unfair than the current district boundaries. Unless you want a constitutional amendment overhauling our entire system of government, compact districts are fair in the same way that state boundaries are fair. Fairness isn’t in the result, it’s in the process. The state boundaries weren’t drawn to give the GOP an advantage, but they do. Likewise, district boundaries should be drawn in a party blind fashion. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/25 "2018-01-25T16:26:55Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Utter tripe. You’re saying that current system isn’t horrible because it’s only slightly worse than another system without showing that the other system is fair. > > The GOP consistently gets more representatives than the percentage of votes should indicate. If compact districts also give that result then they are also not fair, if less unfair than the current district boundaries. Are you saying that the only system you consider fair is proportional representation? And I quibble with your “consistently”. [In 2008, Democrats got 53% of the votes and 59% of the seats. Republicans got 42.6% of the votes, but only 40.9% of the seats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2008#Results). ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/26 "2018-01-25T16:27:25Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > It doesn’t necessarily mean that compact districts are unfair _per se_, if the reason the end result is unbalanced is the way representatives are allotted to the states, and that does seem to be part of the issue. Compact districts could very well be the fairest way in the absence of state line considerations, but in order to achieve an overall balance they’d have to be slightly _unfair_ in the other direction. > > I personally think compactness should be one element to consider since it provides a slight check on blatant gerrymandering. I’m not sure what the whole solution should be though. That is the beginning and end of the solution. The problem here is that Democrats want to win elections their way, and if their way doesn’t work, then it’s all just so unfair. Back when their way worked just fine, they thought the system was fine. They didn’t care about gerrymandering, they didn’t care about the Electoral College, they didn’t even care about making voting easier. Everything was working so everything was peachy. Now Democrats lose elections despite seeming to have a natural slight majority nationally. It sucks, but that’s the playing field and Democrats have to play on the field as it exists. So your team plays shitty on natural grass? No, you don’t get to replace it with artificial turf. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/27 "2018-01-25T16:34:18Z")
Just for shits and giggles, what if you got rid of the artificial borders of states when drawing maps, and drew districts across the country with the same number of people in each district (711,000 or whatever), crossing state borders if necessary. I understand there would be major outcry if something like this transpired, but would it create a more balanced representation in the House? Perhaps let the Senate represent the states, and the House represent the people without regard to what state they live in. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/28 "2018-01-25T16:49:23Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > If you’re going to go that route, **constanze** , then the goal is to maximize representation. Wrong. The Goal is to maximize Fairness. > [@](#): > > So then the point would be to come up with a system that matches as closely as possible the percentages of each party in the populace with the number of people in each party in representation. > > The only system I’m aware of that does this is not put in place anywhere in the world (as far as I know). But it is called Proportional represenation. I can’t watch your Video, but I do wonder where you looked. AFAIK, only the US has only majority voting. Other (modern democratic) countries have either proportional voting Systems for some elections (e.g. parliament) and majority voting for others (E.g. President, in France); only representative; or a mix of both. E.g. we have two votes for parliament: first vote majority only for the Person to become our MP; second vote proportional, to elect a Party that represents our ideas best. > [@](#): > > As you say, it isn’t possible that we would fix this. But you do miss that there can be a discrepancy between the national and state level, which could make some sort of compromise possible. Why a compromise over a discrepancy? Again, you don’t have to invent a new solution out of whole Cloth. You don’t even Need Computers (in fact, get rid of all voting machines, too, if you wanted to get a truly democratic voting System). For decades Europeans, Canadians and Australians have managed to draw fair voting districts just with rulers, pocket calculators, some census and past data, and pencils. Oh, and neutral, competent civil Service workers doing their Job for the People and Democracy, not for one Party. Okay, I see why it can’t be done. 😉 > [@](#): > > Right now, removing gerrymandering helps, but the real solution is to gerrymander in such a way as to get proportional representation. It’s not about competitiveness, but about making sure people have representatives in Congress. I don’t see why you would prefer gerrymandering to proportional representation over getting rid of an unfair System complelty. If you want to join the rest of modern Democracies, just Change the voting System to representational, instead of choosing a “different” gerrymandering. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/29 "2018-01-25T16:52:59Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > They already draw districts so as to benefit a party, they just do it by taking turns rather than through cooperation. It’s not through cooperation or taking turns. It’s by appointing technical experts who take pride in being neutral, instead of taking in pride in Party loyalty. > [@](#): > > I’d actually rather see geographically compact district drawn by computer algorithm. Computers suffer from the GIGO Problem, in that case, either badly written Software (through incompetence or Intention) and/ or bad data fed into it. We already have existing examples of “learning” Computer programs turning out to have learned racial or other biases which were not intended - partly because the existing inequality in US Society is learned by the program as “normal” and not as “Aberration to be corrected”. And a Computer is not necessary. A neutral human expert can do the Job just as well, but more transparent than a complex program. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/30 "2018-01-25T16:53:47Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > Just for shits and giggles, what if you got rid of the artificial borders of states when drawing maps, and drew districts across the country with the same number of people in each district (711,000 or whatever), crossing state borders if necessary. I understand there would be major outcry if something like this transpired, but would it create a more balanced representation in the House? Perhaps let the Senate represent the states, and the House represent the people without regard to what state they live in. That would make some difference I’d imagine. I don’t know that House districts crossing state borders is unconstitutional per se. The reason boundaries are drawn within states is that states draw the districts. But I wonder if states could make a compact to draw in voters from each other’s states that have more affinity for each other? For example, aren’t people who live in metro New York in Jersey really New Yorkers? Aren’t Virginians who live in DC suburbs really more DC than Virginia? ALthough I guess with DC it doesn’t matter since they can’t have representation, but if they did, I’d think you’d want to make all of metro DC a state if you were being fair about clustering people together with common culture and interests. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/31 "2018-01-25T17:00:11Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > We have a weak party system, where no party member is obligated to vote the party line. Um, what? Do you have any evidence for that? Maybe you mean that there is no law that Party members must vote the Party line? Well, guess what: in countries with proportional Systems, there is no such law, either! (One article of our constitution says explicitly “MPs are only beholden to their conscience”) What happens in both Systems in real life, however, is that most Republicans vote with the Party line, because otherwise they won’t get nominated again; and more important, they don’t want to get on the bad side of the rich, powerful, influential People leading the Party. I have not seen any sign in US politics in last decade that members of Congress acted as individuals instead of Party line (See: Republican obstruction during Obama years). > [@](#): > > A lot of politicians have made a career out of being independents in reality and party members in name only. If we went proportional, parties would submit slates of candidates, which would mean only partisans could be elected. Again, that’s not necessarily true. People can still run as independents for the majority vote here, for example. The Left once used this several elections ago to get around the 5% rule: nationally, they failed, but they got 3 direct seats in Berlin, one of them a famous guy, so they could enter parliament. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/32 "2018-01-25T17:02:46Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > That is the beginning and end of the solution. The problem here is that Democrats want to win elections their way, and if their way doesn’t work, then it’s all just so unfair. Back when their way worked just fine, they thought the system was fine. They didn’t care about gerrymandering, they didn’t care about the Electoral College, they didn’t even care about making voting easier. Everything was working so everything was peachy. > > Now Democrats lose elections despite seeming to have a natural slight majority nationally. It sucks, but that’s the playing field and Democrats have to play on the field as it exists. So your team plays shitty on natural grass? No, you don’t get to replace it with artificial turf. Do you have any proof of that? When was the last time the Democrats had a significant enough majority in Congress to do Major changes in voting System on a national scale? Not just a democratic President like Obama, or a thin majority (?) during Clinton, but a solid majority. Any proof that Democrats didn’t take this Topic seriously, instead of not seeing a Chance to get it through? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/33 "2018-01-25T17:03:10Z")
The ability to punish Congressmen for not towing the party line is limited. You can take away plum committees, even withdraw financial support. But in the end, the people decide. In a proportional system, the party can actually just decide you aren’t running for reelection. Sure, you can run as an independent, but c’mon. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/34 "2018-01-25T17:06:16Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > That would make some difference I’d imagine. I don’t know that House districts crossing state borders is unconstitutional per se. The reason boundaries are drawn within states is that states draw the districts. But I wonder if states could make a compact to draw in voters from each other’s states that have more affinity for each other? For example, aren’t people who live in metro New York in Jersey really New Yorkers? Aren’t Virginians who live in DC suburbs really more DC than Virginia? ALthough I guess with DC it doesn’t matter since they can’t have representation, but if they did, I’d think you’d want to make all of metro DC a state if you were being fair about clustering people together with common culture and interests. What? The reason boundaries are drawn within states is because each state is assigned a number of seats. Ignoring the state borders would throw that out. Not arguing whether that’s a good idea, certainly some people would like it, but it’s a major change to the system. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/35 "2018-01-25T17:09:04Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Do you have any proof of that? When was the last time the Democrats had a significant enough majority in Congress to do Major changes in voting System on a national scale? Not just a democratic President like Obama, or a thin majority (?) during Clinton, but a solid majority. > > Any proof that Democrats didn’t take this Topic seriously, instead of not seeing a Chance to get it through? When Democrats had total dominance from the 1930s-1970s, they were relying on a combination of the white working class and minority voters. The Republicans were primarily a party of the wealthy and educated elites. The urban/rural divide was not as stark. Republicans could win New York and California, and Democrats could win Montana and Nebraska. Because of the makeup of the party coalitions, neither side had a voter motivation gap, or a serious urban/rural problem. Elections consisted of motivating your party base and appealing to swing voters and it was a fair playing field, even though Democrats had a major advantage due to the sheer size of the white working class. But now, the white working class votes Republican and the Democrats are heavily reliant on minority voters. Further, due to the Republican Party going down the religion and racism rabbit hole, the Democrats have won the allegiance of upscale urban voters. So the Democratic coalition is very urban, and the minority portion of their base doesn’t vote reliably. So that creates multiple problems for the party which are framed as an issue of basic fairness. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/36 "2018-01-25T17:10:04Z")
And in the American system, sure, you can run without party backing, but c’mon. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/37 "2018-01-25T17:14:13Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The ability to punish Congressmen for not towing the party line is limited. Pet Peeve Patrol hat ON: \*Toeing \*the line. Not towing. You place your toes on the line on the floor when you report to boot camp or prison. Pet Peeve Patrol hat OFF. > [@](#): > > You can take away plum committees, even withdraw financial support. But in the end, the people decide. With no pull and no money, you have no ability to convince the people you’re worth voting for. Yes, whipping votes is a little more difficult than in a parliamentary system, but not that much more so. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/38 "2018-01-25T17:14:38Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The ability to punish Congressmen for not towing the party line is limited. You can take away plum committees, even withdraw financial support. But in the end, the people decide. In a proportional system, the party can actually just decide you aren’t running for reelection. Sure, you can run as an independent, but c’mon. So the approval of the Republican Party to a candidate (like Roy Moore) doesn’t Count for anything? Getting Support from the official Republican Party machine instead of having to raise all the Money on your own (given how expensive campaigns in the US are) is nothing? You seem to read different News than I do. And you still haven’t said where you get your ideas about the proportional System from? We have two Major parties with very different ideas on leadership of the Party in my partly-proportional System: the consies followe the authoritarian leader principle. What head Person decides, the Party goes along. There will be grumbling, and head Person has to watch their back, kneecapping all upstarts, before she’s disposed. Candidates are selected for their list Position often by backroom dealings. The SPD on the other Hand, even more the Greens, follow the democratic principle. The Greens tried out everything and still stick with the double-head = one men and one female as head of the Party, along with alternating one woman, one man on the lists. Candidates and Programm are decided by the Basis. (That’s visible right now with the coalition talks: Merkel decides for the consies. SPD has a vote by their members - to start coalition talks; when the deal is ready to sign, there will be another vote, if the Basis finds the deal acceptable. Because that’s how they organized their Party). ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/39 "2018-01-25T17:15:15Z")
Is part of the problem, perhaps, that we’re overdue for an increase in the total number of representatives? The number was raised to 435 in 1911, when the total population was less than a hundred million. This would have an added benefit of reducing the outsized influence that sparsely populated states have in the electoral college. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444/40 "2018-01-25T17:15:43Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > But now, the white working class votes Republican and the Democrats are heavily reliant on minority voters. Further, due to the Republican Party going down the religion and racism rabbit hole, the Democrats have won the allegiance of upscale urban voters. So the Democratic coalition is very urban, and the minority portion of their base doesn’t vote reliably. So that creates multiple problems for the party which are framed as an issue of basic fairness. And this relates to plainly gerrymandered districts (so-called ‘horseshoe districts’ among others) how? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-take-on-gerrymandering-us-politics/807444.md?page=3)