What? With districts and zones, people vote. Majority wins. Pretty basic.
Well, it’s a complicated issue. Let’s assume there’s a state where all but an area of 10 blocks votes for candidate X. If that area happens to be split between several cities, the people living there are SOL as their vote is basically useless. Gerrymandering allows them to have a say in what goes on. But yes, as with everything, corruption ruins it.
thermal_shock@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
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.
thermal_shock@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
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.
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
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.
stevedice@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Then the people living in those 10 blocks have to live with whatever the rest voted for regardless of whether it works for them or not with no hope of things ever changing because they’re a minority.
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Yes, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Your regional representative is supposed to represent your region. If you’re the minority in the region then you don’t get to pick the representative.
We don’t have a proportional voting system. The system is not designed to ensure that elected party makeup matches voter preference distribution.
The minority voters in your scenario get their say in the Senate votes where everything is equal and the district is the entire state.In any case, the scenario you’re describing is more representative of the cracking type of gerrymandering that’s the problem. A collection of voters in a region being split amongst multiple districts to dilute their votes is what gerrymandering is.
stevedice@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Hmm, I think I might have completely fucked up my phrasing somewhere because you seem to be agreeing with me.
thermal_shock@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Well, in a perfect world, people wouldn’t vote specifically to hurt others.
Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
No vote woule be useless because they would all count the same.
stevedice@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Sounds great on theory but that’s just another way of saying minorities don’t get a vote.
laserm@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Gerrymandering by definition implies malicious intent
stevedice@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Yep. I just didn’t wanna draw a distinction between gerrymandering and regular settings of electoral borders because there’s a mouthful.