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Simple math can help scheming politicians manipulate district maps and cruise to victory. But it can also help identify and fix the problem.
Imagine fighting a war on 10 battlefields. You and your opponent each have 200 soldiers, and your aim is to win as many battles as possible. How would you deploy your troops? If you spread them out evenly, sending 20 to each battlefield, your opponent could concentrate their own troops and easily win a majority of the fights. You could try to overwhelm several locations yourself, but there's no guarantee you'll win, and you'll leave the remaining battlefields poorly defended. Devising a winning strategy isn't easy, but as long as neither side knows the other's plan in advance, it's a fair fight.
Now imagine your opponent has the power to deploy your troops as well as their own. Even if you get more troops, you can't win.
In the war of politics, this power to deploy forces comes from gerrymandering, the age-old practice of manipulating voting districts for partisan gain. By determining who votes where, politicians can tilt the odds in their favor and defeat their opponents before the battle even begins.
Anyone for a game of RISK?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by rylyeh on Monday October 23 2017, @01:18AM (4 children)
No.
The efficiency quotient they talk about is based upon the fewest wasted votes, not the % of representation. You said you read TFA but methinks you didn't 'get' it.
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @03:32AM (2 children)
For example, maybe many people actually liked the new candidate even though they were voting for the other side before Then would the big margin in the new candidate's victory count as "wasted votes" and thus a sign of gerrymandering according to this system?
(Score: 2) by rylyeh on Monday October 23 2017, @03:42AM (1 child)
It could affect the way the boundaries are drawn, but this would not likely invoke a gerrymandering challenge as that involves manipulating the boundaries intentionally.
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @11:32AM
If no, why not (using the reasoning of this research)? ;)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 23 2017, @02:10PM
And, that "efficiency quotient" is complete and utter bullshit.
The laws never should have been written that give preference to either and/or both of our dominant parties. It would be perfectly alright if two or six enclaves around the country regularly voted Whig - and another dozen enclaves routinely voted Socialist, while another dozen voted Libertarian. If gerrymandering is somehow "good" for the two dominant parties, then it only makes sense that every other interested party be given special districts, which will vote for them.
IMHO, there should be no districts at all. A county should be counted as a unit, and every county counted equally. Congressional "districts" should be composed of some number of counties - whether that number be one, or twenty, or whatever. But, EVERY DISTRICT should follow county lines.
Every scheme that I have looked at is rigged to favor someone. There are no non-partisan districting schemes. Counties make the most sense, because almost everyone in the same county has overlapping and similar concerns. A district that cuts across several counties is entirely bogus, each and every time it happens. It is a case of the "ruling class" divvying up the proles between them. And, it has nothing to do with democracy.