Just wanted to pass this on - The Redistricting Game.
This game effectively explains the issues concerning redistricting, and it is kind of fun to boot.
Judging from the gerrymander-looking districts in Texas,, it looks like legislators could stand to learn a lesson in creating fair districts.
5 comments:
Indeed ... if you are corrupt enough, and have enough cronies, you can do anything you want in Texas. It was pretty awful while it was happening, but amusing that the democrats who were trying to keep the vote from happening took refuge in New Mexico for a while.
From the explanation on the FairVote page, it sounds like the Democrats had it coming to them:
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"Democrats drew the most effective partisan gerrymander for congressional elections in the nation in 1991. The eight Republican incumbents were put into districts packed with Republican voters. These incumbents won overwhelmingly, but despite the fact that the statewide congressional vote was evenly split, Democrats won 21 of the remaining 22 seats -- including the three newly-created seats, each of which were filled by state legislators who had served on redistricting committees. Only one of thirty races was decided by a margin under 10% in 1992."
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It is ridiculous that this has gone on so long. Politics as usual, I guess.
I know. I think redistricting should be done by a computer and based on population density. Period. The only thing the computer should maybe adjust for is racial distribution. But legislators should never never have control over something that determines if they or their friends remain in power, no matter which side of the aisle they hail from.
I agree that politicians should not be able to redistrict - but how to do it fairly??? I guess give the census figures to the computer,set basic guidelines and let it go...they are talking about redistricting here too...must be a world-wide problem
No profound thoughts since June?
:)
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