The issue is less to do with votes inside a district, and more with the apportionment of the districts themselves.
For something like the presidential election a popular vote makes (more) sense.
Where gerrymandering comes in is regional representatives. I’m supposed to have a congressional representative who represents me and my neighbors.
‘Districting’ is the general practice of defining what constitutes a group of neighbors. When done properly you tend to get fairly compact districts that have people living in similar circumstances represented together. The people living near the lake get a representative, as do the people living in the city center, and the people living in the townhouses just at the edge of town do too. (A lot of rules around making sure that doesn’t get racist or awful, but that’s a different comment).
‘gerrymandering’ is the abuse of the districting process to benefit the politicians to the detriment of the voter. Cutting the districts in such a way that people who tend to vote the same way get spread around to either never or always get a majority share, depending on if you want them to win or not.
The above poster is wrong, and gerrymandering never had a valid usage. If 10% of the population has a political belief but they’re spread out amongst different districts, then they’re supposed to lose, not have the system bend over backwards to give them a special group.
Districting has value though, since it’s the way the system is supposed to allow people from smaller areas to have their voices heard without being drowned out by bigger areas, but fairly, such that each representative represents roughly the same number of people.
Other countries also do this type of districting, they just have other systems in place that keep it from being so flagrantly abused.
My mind was stuck on presidential and more nationwide elections, which popular vote makes sense. Local things should be more regional like you described. If you don’t live by the lake, you have pretty much zero say on what those that do live there say.
100% thought you had done that, and just wanted to ramble some clarification in case. :) it’s pretty easy to focus on the “big” elections, and how what makes them shitty is essentially the “small” elections working properly-ish.
Personally, I’ve always wondered about a system where people directly vote for the representative they want regardless of geography, and then that person represents their constituency.
Geography used to represent a much more significant part of a persons interests, since you likely worked reasonably near where you lived, shopped and everything else. That’s less true now.
It’s moot since we’re not changing the fundamentals of our system anytime soon, but it’s interesting to think about.
The issue is less to do with votes inside a district, and more with the apportionment of the districts themselves.
For something like the presidential election a popular vote makes (more) sense.
Where gerrymandering comes in is regional representatives. I’m supposed to have a congressional representative who represents me and my neighbors.
‘Districting’ is the general practice of defining what constitutes a group of neighbors. When done properly you tend to get fairly compact districts that have people living in similar circumstances represented together. The people living near the lake get a representative, as do the people living in the city center, and the people living in the townhouses just at the edge of town do too. (A lot of rules around making sure that doesn’t get racist or awful, but that’s a different comment). ‘gerrymandering’ is the abuse of the districting process to benefit the politicians to the detriment of the voter. Cutting the districts in such a way that people who tend to vote the same way get spread around to either never or always get a majority share, depending on if you want them to win or not.
The above poster is wrong, and gerrymandering never had a valid usage. If 10% of the population has a political belief but they’re spread out amongst different districts, then they’re supposed to lose, not have the system bend over backwards to give them a special group.
Districting has value though, since it’s the way the system is supposed to allow people from smaller areas to have their voices heard without being drowned out by bigger areas, but fairly, such that each representative represents roughly the same number of people.
Other countries also do this type of districting, they just have other systems in place that keep it from being so flagrantly abused.
My mind was stuck on presidential and more nationwide elections, which popular vote makes sense. Local things should be more regional like you described. If you don’t live by the lake, you have pretty much zero say on what those that do live there say.
100% thought you had done that, and just wanted to ramble some clarification in case. :) it’s pretty easy to focus on the “big” elections, and how what makes them shitty is essentially the “small” elections working properly-ish.
Personally, I’ve always wondered about a system where people directly vote for the representative they want regardless of geography, and then that person represents their constituency.
Geography used to represent a much more significant part of a persons interests, since you likely worked reasonably near where you lived, shopped and everything else. That’s less true now.
It’s moot since we’re not changing the fundamentals of our system anytime soon, but it’s interesting to think about.