How to rig an election

From The Economist print edition ^ | Apr 25th 2002 | From The Economist print edition

[NovemberCharlie]

They have a lot of nerve making it seem like gerrymandering is a US invention. Protestant groups in Northern Ireland have been doin it there since catholics regained the right to vote wit the repeal of the penal laws in the 1870's.

But the original Gerrymander occurred in 1811.

[tacticalogic]

"Democratic Representative" is two seperate and distict lies.

[Forgiven_Sinner]

This is a good article. Thanks for the post.

You're welcome!

The Economist overstates its case somewhat by ignoring independent or non-affiliated voters.

Quite so. They present the sides fairly, but they do oversimplify.

Term limits likely is the best practicable answer

No. Term limits are unconstitutional, in my opinion. They limit the choice of the voter. If I want to re-elect my congressman 50 times, I'll do that. What's bad is the built in franking privilege and fund raising advantage the incumbents have. I'd rather publish their voting records and their contributors, linked to the appropriate issues. I'd also like to ban lobbyists from the Congressional halls. Let them meet on their own time, not on our public servants' work time!

As hard as it is to believe, our corrupt politicians are intentially re-elected by their constituents. Many people just vote on name recognition, without any other thought. Hence the 90% re-election statistic.

[boris]

"How to rig an election"

Make sure dead people and illegal aliens get to the polls.

[Robert A Cook PE]

"How to rig an election"

1. Make sure dead people and illegal aliens get to the polls.

2. Make sure your purchased democrats vore early, vote often, and vore democrat.

3. Make sure a democrat is running.

[watcher1]

But the champion gerrymandering comes from Illinois.....
Worst of all is the state's extraordinary 17th District

I don't know if I should laugh or cry!

[mykdsmom]

Good but discouraging read, thanks for the ping bb.

MKM

[bjcintennessee]

...software to draw compact districts ignoring all else but population.

Absolutely!! I have always thought that gerrymandering should be declared unconstitutional, regardless which party it aided. Maybe the US Supreme Court would reconsider its decision now that newer, objective technology could be applied?

[VeritatisSplendor]

I work in this area professionally. There is no easy solution. Even if you require compact districts, the software available still permits effective gerrymandering (though not quite as effective as when you can make the districts look like spiders and salamanders).

The biggest built-in safeguard against gerrymandering being used to maintain one party with a disproportionately large amount of power is that you have to do that by creating a lot of districts where you have a small edge; a large enough political upheaval, of the type that comes every 10 or 15 years, will move you from holding almost all the seats to almost none of them.

This excellent article correctly identifies the more serious problem with modern gerrymandering -- it serves as an incumbent protection scheme. This is a huge threat because it is when the Democrats and Republicans AGREE on something that we are really in danger of losing our freedoms. We are rapidly approaching the point where more incumbents will be beaten in primaries than in general elections.

I wish I had an answer. The best I can come up with is that national party organizations should not be allowed to give money to incumbents for primary campaigns, if a constitutional way to do this is possible. All that will do is allow worthless complacent incumbents to be ousted by other candidates from their party, it doesn't solve the problem that 1/3 of each district NEVER gets to cast a meaningful vote (because all the districts break 2-1 in favor of one party or the other).

I'm looking hard for a silver lining here, but i cna't see any yet.

[supercat]

I work in this area professionally. There is no easy solution. Even if you require compact districts, the software available still permits effective gerrymandering (though not quite as effective as when you can make the districts look like spiders and salamanders).

What about coming up with a standardized formula for "gerrymander quotient" [e.g. the ratio of the perimeter of a district* to its area] and then offering both parties a chance to draw up a map in secret. Once both parties' maps are complete, they publish them and the one with the lower gerrymander quotient is the one that's used. Parties would thus have an incentive to gerrymander slightly less than their opponent.

(*)For districts which are at the edge of a state, the portion of the state boundary which overlaps the district boundary would be regarded as convex for purposes of perimeter calculations

[boris]

"I work in this area professionally."

I don't. But it seems to me that solutions must exist.

For example: Mandate that all districts must be rectangular, except those on state borders.

Mandate that the populations of each rectangle be "roughly" equal, so far as possible with rectangular districts, and that the areas of districts be "roughly" equal. One can even contemplate that an upper and lower bound on the aspect ratio of the rectangles could be stated.

In other words, abandon the ability to shape districts any-which-way, and also abandon the fixation on equal numbers.

What's wrong with that?

--Boris

[VeritatisSplendor]

That is a very creative idea, but as I said, I am more worried about the gerrymanders that the parties AGREE on for incumbent-protection than the ones one party imposes to maximize its own power at the expense of the other. I agree that your idea addresses the latter problem well.

[VeritatisSplendor]

There are severe mathematical difficulties with your proposal -- I don't have time to go into them now, will post later about this.

[supercat]

That is a very creative idea, but as I said, I am more worried about the gerrymanders that the parties AGREE on for incumbent-protection than the ones one party imposes to maximize its own power at the expense of the other.

Yes, except that no party would have any interest in doing any gerrymandering at all to benefit anyone in the other party, since doing so would increase the gerrymander quotient. If a party was trying to target a certain gerrymander quotient (e.g. 5.0, depending upon how it's calculated) they would be best served only gerrymandering where it specifically benefitted them. Of course, if they gerrymander themselves a 5.0 and their opponent gerrymanders a 4.9, the opponent's mapping would win, so there would definitely be some strategy involved.