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from the non-voting-person-OR-non-person-voter dept.
The LA Times and just about every news outlet has a story about a Supreme Court case which could change how election districts are drawn up.
At issue before the court was the basic question of who gets counted when election districts are drawn: Is it all people, including children, prisoners and immigrants who are not eligible to vote? Or is it only adult citizens who are eligible voters?
The case centers around districts with heavy concentrations of people not eligible to vote (generally illegal aliens). These are counted by the census, and that district gets legislative representation based on their presence, even when there are fewer actual voters in those districts. The plaintiffs claim this give more weight to voters in such district, over an equal number of voters in other districts.
The challengers cited the example of two Texas state Senate districts, both of which have about 800,000 residents. One rural district in east Texas, where plaintiff Sue Evenwel resides, had about 574,000 citizens who are eligible to vote; the other district in the Rio Grande valley had only 372,000 people who are eligible to vote. The lawsuit in Evenwel vs. Abbott argues this is unconstitutional.
Do Soylentils see the allocation of election districts as a process to distribute legislative seats equally over the number of voters, or equally over the number of people (regardless of whether those people can vote or not)? (Or is this where we launch off on the usual discussions of a total redesign of the US Voting system to some totally different mathematical model?)
(Score: 5, Informative) by Kilo110 on Thursday December 10 2015, @11:25AM
You're forgetting children, legal immigrants, and prisoners. This isn't only about illegal immigrants
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Thursday December 10 2015, @11:46AM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2015, @12:33PM
In other words, a shameless vote grab by Desperate democrats for welfare gimme-gimmes.
Let's hope it fails. We dont need kids and leeches voting.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Thursday December 10 2015, @02:10PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2015, @04:20PM
You have no idea what you are talking about.
No one is going to let kids or illegal immigrants vote.
This has to do in whether they count for districting purposes. The hope on the Right is that they don't, which will allow them to gerrymander the districts worse then they are.
If anyone is playing games here it is the right. (Not saying the left doesnt do shady stuff, Hillary..., BUT in this instance its shady on the right side of the political divide. )
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2015, @12:40PM
The reasoning may make sense, but I suspect this is more about justifying an excuse for some seriously biased gerrymandering rather than fairer legislative representation.
I work for the US Census Bureau, on the Decennial Census. It saddens me that politicians take our hard work and use it to gerrymander. We spend a lot of time trying to make sure we get good data (it's not perfect; counting 300,000,000 people is hard), and everyone I know at work wants whatever program they work on to be the best it can be.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Alfred on Thursday December 10 2015, @03:41PM
I call BS.
*start music*
One of these things is not like the Other, One of these things just doesn't belong...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2015, @08:32PM
If you say "Government is the problem", get yourself elected, then (once inside government) do everything you can to wreck government, the problem is -not- government.
The problem is YOU.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday December 10 2015, @03:09PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 4, Funny) by curunir_wolf on Thursday December 10 2015, @08:31PM
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Friday December 11 2015, @06:51AM
Are they really that much smaller than native Texans?
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Thursday December 10 2015, @07:18PM
Are you real, real sure about that? http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/ [pewhispanic.org]
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by Nollij on Friday December 11 2015, @04:26AM
You're measuring 2 different things.
1) Hispanic includes far more than Mexico. It also includes Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and a whole bunch of countries south of Mexico.
2) Immigrants != heritage. There are many hispanics born here that are not immigrants. While the growth has slowed down, it is still growing [pewresearch.org].
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 10 2015, @11:47AM
What about felonious children who also happen to be illegal immigrants? Won't somebody think of them?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday December 10 2015, @01:43PM
You're forgetting children, legal immigrants, and prisoners.
They're all right there in the summary:
Is it all people, including children, prisoners and immigrants who are not eligible to vote?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk