FTFY



...even if your intentions are noble, getting representation for the underrepresented, the definition of how you do it falls firmly in the definition for gerrymander.



Nah, we've know for decades that illegals cost more than they contribute:

https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/110th-congress-2007-2008/reports/12-6-immigration.pdf
https://www.gao.gov/products/hehs-95-133

That's a pretty poor definition of gerrymander lol. Any good definition has to include that you are attempting to establish a disproportionate advantage. The first line of the wiki definition is much better.

Gerrymandering (/ˈdʒɛrimændərɪŋ/,[1][2]) is a practice intended to establish an unfair political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries, which is most commonly used in first-past-the-post electoral systems.

Otherwise literally any modification of borders counts as gerrymandering.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Sep 4 2020 01:51pm

See, and that's the crux: finding a scientific definition of what distinguishes an unfair from a fair political advantage; a definition that is consistent, reproducible and valid - and agreeable to both sides of the political spectrum on top of that.

Like I already mentioned, the current Democratic coalition in the U.S. tends to self-pack into ultra-blue inner city districts, which means that any map drawn based on nothing but apolitical criteria (like district compactness or minimizing cuts to county lines) will yield a House map thatl slightly favors Republicans. Is that kind of advantage fair or unfair?

Another example is Massachusetts, a state with 9 Congressional districts where Republicans make up around one third of the electorate. However, Democratic support is so evenly and efficiently spread out across the state that it is almost impossible to draw a map where Republicans can win a seat, even though their statewide vote share should net them roughly 3 of MA's 9 seats. One would have to go out of one's way and draw frankenstein seats to get a Republican seat in MA. Hence, MA exhibits some sort of "natural gerrymander" in favor of Democrats. Is this a fair or an unfair advantage?

It is not trivial to come up with an answer to those questions.

Not really. Representation should be proportional to the votes of the people. So if 60% of the people vote R, 60% of the representatives should be R. If they vote 40Q 30R 30S, yadda yadda.

Things should be proportional.

It's really that simple.

What you are describing isn't a dispute on the definition of fair, it's a dispute about how best to achieve that.

Half the amount? How much is that on average?

What is their net contribution to taxation on average?

Exactly!

You don't think you're advantaging someone when you group them together to get them that voice? You are necessarily disadvantaging someone else to do it.

Did you even read the rest of my post? The example of Massachusetts shows that achieving this type of proportional representation is sometimes outright impossible within a first past the post election system. Your argument boils down to "FPTP is inherently unfair, we should have a proportional representation system instead". Which is a valid and understandable stance. But it is not an answer at all to the original question, namely how to distinguish "fair" from "unfair" political advantages within the existing electoral framework of the country.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 4 2020 02:24pm

The question isn't if you are changing who gets what level of advantage, the question is if the advantage is proportional to the level of support.

You're just making up a new word for something that already exists if it includes all redistricting activities. Gerrymandering stops being descriptive of nefarious behavior and the definition instead becomes "redrawing borders under any and all circumstances".

Again, you aren't describing a problem of definitions. You're describing a problem of practical execution. There are going to be times when the current system cannot achieve the ideal solution. That doesn't mean we don't know what characteristics the optimal solution would have.

In the case of Massachusetts, you're describing a place where super strange shaped districts would actually be something that needed to be done to avoid gerrymandering.

Redistricting is making sure there are the same number of people in each district. Gerrymandering is picking which people they are. Virtually all redistricting IS gerrymandering to some degree, and not pure redistricting.