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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: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 10 2015, @03:28PM
I know that the first primaries in the American presidential race are approaching, and that some Soylentils, left, right, center, and other are focused on the outcome, but there have been quite a lot of US-centric political stories entering the story stream. I personally have a long, close history of engagement with politics in America on all levels, so part of me welcomes the opportunity to discuss and debate with highly tuned minds who are outside any echo chamber. But we ought to take care to avoid being drawn into the pointless bickering, the kabuki, that mass media is selling.
Slashdot, and Soylent, have always used the "things that matter" part of the clause to cover stories that don't fall under the tech & science rubrics, but let's be careful to make sure that inch is isn't taken to a mile. What I have seen on Slashdot and here on Soylent is that the very best of us comes out when talking about STEM. Users whose posts on politics seem limited to reflexive talking points shine when talking about, say, chip design.
I would personally be very grateful to have an island of calm, a respite, talking about tech while Western Civilization self-destructs (or reinvents itself).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Thursday December 10 2015, @07:27PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams