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Conclusive proof of massive gerrymandering by repubs

OscarLevant

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The hard data tells the tale

It also confirms that the midterms were indeed a Blue Wave

20181224_182445.jpg
 
Where is this proof you speak of? All I see is a picture of a chart on a screen that shows nothing but a few points in recent election. Maybe if it had dates, data, or information of any kind it could be stretched to vague evidence.
 
No No No, don't you get it, both sides do it

/s

Dems did what, one or two Districts in Massachusetts?

That's not enough the impact the outcome of a presidential election as revealed in the graph. It's precisely why I used the word "massive" in the subject line.
 
Amazing to think that even with the number of gerrymandered districts swung over to a favorable situation for GOP candidates they STILL felt compelled to revert to outfight voter fraud in some districts.
 
The hard data tells the tale

It also confirms that the midterms were indeed a Blue Wave

View attachment 67246672

Democrats have gerrymandered themselves by choosing to live in areas where only other democrats are. It’s called self-sorting and its a much bigger problem than any partisan drawn lines
 
The hard data tells the tale

It also confirms that the midterms were indeed a Blue Wave

View attachment 67246672

Not really. Sometimes one party wins all the close ones. There is no doubt the Democrats gerrymandered the heck out of Illinois and New York, the Republicans in Texas and North Carolina. Both sides hollered up a storm over the other sides gerrymandering. We're 8 years past the point of gerrymandering. Lots of people moved, lots of new voters were added to the rolls, bunch have died. The impact of gerrymandering lessens in each successive election.

A prime example is my CD-6 which for 2012 had a PVI of R+20. in 2018 it was R+1 and a Democrat won the district for the first time in 20 years. migration, people leaving the CD, lots of folks from Atlanta moving in, the gerrymandering of 2010 was no more. Like it never happened.
 
Democrats have gerrymandered themselves by choosing to live in areas where only other democrats are. It’s called self-sorting and its a much bigger problem than any partisan drawn lines

They gerrymandered themselves? That's like blaming the victim. I will cite an excerpt from an article The Atlantic published which can be found here.

Nowhere has this tension been more dramatic than in North Carolina. The state made headlines last March when its GOP-dominated general assembly abruptly overturned a Charlotte ordinance banning discrimination against LGBT people (and stating, among other things, that transgender people could use the bathroom of their choice). Legislators didn’t just reverse Charlotte’s ordinance, though; the state law, HB2, also barred every city in the state from passing nondiscrimination regulations, and banned local minimum-wage laws, too.

North Carolina’s legislature wasn’t new to preemption—previously, it had banned sanctuary cities, prohibited towns from destroying guns confiscated by the police, and blocked local fracking regulations. It had restructured the Greensboro city council so as to dilute Democratic clout. In Wake County, home to Raleigh, it had redrawn the districts for both the school board and county commission, shifting power from urban to suburban voters. The state had seized Asheville’s airport and tried to seize its water system too. Lawmakers had also passed a bill wresting control of Charlotte’s airport from the city and handing it to a new commission.

And the result of Democrats "gerrymandering themselves" was?

Within two months of HB2’s passage, Charlotte’s Chamber of Commerce estimated that the city had lost nearly $285 million and 1,300 jobs—and that was before the NBA yanked its 2017 All-Star Game from the city. Asheville, a bohemian tourist magnet in the Blue Ridge Mountains, lost millions from canceled conferences alone.

There are distinctions one could make between cities being unable to self govern and gerrymandering, but they are two branches of the same tree. You say that Democrats live where other Democrats live - and nothing about the fact that Republicans are doing the exact same thing, but control more counties as a result of what you refer to as self sorting. I'm lost as to why you believe we can't have fairly drawn districts because of this. But don't argue with me, argue with a panel of North Carolina judges who said a 2016 congressional redistricting plan was made with the express purpose to "ensure Republican candidates would prevail in the vast majority of the State's congressional districts." 2.2 million residents of NC voted for Trump. 2.4 million voted for Clinton. But Republicans control 10 house seats and Democrats control 2. If gerrymandering isn't the problem, why are they illegally redrawing districts.
 
330px-Gerrymandering_9-6.png

Courtesy of Wikipedia

How gerrymandering can influence electoral results on a non-proportional system. For a state with 3 equally sized districts, 15 voters and 2 parties: Plum (squares) and Orange (circles).
In (a), creating 3 mixed-type districts yields a 3–0 win to Plum—a disproportional result considering the statewide 9:6 Plum majority.
In (b), Orange wins the urban district while Plum wins the rural districts—the 2–1 result reflects the statewide vote ratio.
In (c), gerrymandering techniques ensure a 2–1 win to the statewide minority Orange party.

Congressional districts should be determined by computational mathematical algorithms. Parties have bias, mathematics avoids such bias.
 
Democrats have gerrymandered themselves by choosing to live in areas where only other democrats are. It’s called self-sorting and its a much bigger problem than any partisan drawn lines

Apparently someone here doesn’t understand how congressional districting works.
 
Don't worry. They'll come around on the idea of gerrymandering if the Dems get a chance to do it on a similarly grand scale.

Yet again, Democrats will have a choice forced upon them by the GOP, between defeating themselves by taking the high road or fighting fire with fire. They have that special knack of believing in principles only when it would hurt Democrats to act on those principles.
 
They gerrymandered themselves? That's like blaming the victim. I will cite an excerpt from an article The Atlantic published which can be found here.



And the result of Democrats "gerrymandering themselves" was?



There are distinctions one could make between cities being unable to self govern and gerrymandering, but they are two branches of the same tree. You say that Democrats live where other Democrats live - and nothing about the fact that Republicans are doing the exact same thing, but control more counties as a result of what you refer to as self sorting. I'm lost as to why you believe we can't have fairly drawn districts because of this. But don't argue with me, argue with a panel of North Carolina judges who said a 2016 congressional redistricting plan was made with the express purpose to "ensure Republican candidates would prevail in the vast majority of the State's congressional districts." 2.2 million residents of NC voted for Trump. 2.4 million voted for Clinton. But Republicans control 10 house seats and Democrats control 2. If gerrymandering isn't the problem, why are they illegally redrawing districts.

Well you can be ignorant or you can recognize reality

The Self-Segregation of Democrats - Pacific Standard

Ending Gerrymandering Won?t Fix What Ails America | FiveThirtyEight

Americans sorting themselves along party lines, says Cook Political Report - Washington Times

Politics & Elections: Dems are Sorting Themselves into Cities - Daily Yonder
 
Amazing to think that even with the number of gerrymandered districts swung over to a favorable situation for GOP candidates they STILL felt compelled to revert to outfight voter fraud in some districts.

Racists are losing power in the USA. Trump apparently believes they aren't happy about it. That's why Trump based his midterm campaign around racism when he wanted to energize the base. .

Trump's Midterm Closing Argument: Pure Racial Fear
 
Dems stole seats in Calfornia and Maine. If Republicans gerrymandered they did not do a very good job. It has always veen the case, in my lifetime anyway, that Republicans need to win by 5% to ultimately win.



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Where is this proof you speak of? All I see is a picture of a chart on a screen that shows nothing but a few points in recent election. Maybe if it had dates, data, or information of any kind it could be stretched to vague evidence.



Whether or not one agrees with the wave, that's the minor point, the main one being proof of massive gerrymandering, and there is proof of that in the chart.
 
Not really. Sometimes one party wins all the close ones. There is no doubt the Democrats gerrymandered the heck out of Illinois and New York, the Republicans in Texas and North Carolina. Both sides hollered up a storm over the other sides gerrymandering. We're 8 years past the point of gerrymandering. Lots of people moved, lots of new voters were added to the rolls, bunch have died. The impact of gerrymandering lessens in each successive election.

A prime example is my CD-6 which for 2012 had a PVI of R+20. in 2018 it was R+1 and a Democrat won the district for the first time in 20 years. migration, people leaving the CD, lots of folks from Atlanta moving in, the gerrymandering of 2010 was no more. Like it never happened.


The chart proves massive gerrymandering by repubs. If dems garner way more votes and wind up with a lot fewer seats, the only reason is gerrymandering on a national scale that far exceeds whatever you are asserting dems have done.

IF the charge was marginal, it wouldn't prove anothing, but marginal it is not.

The point of the chart is not a state analysis, it's a NATIONWIDE analysis.
 
The chart proves massive gerrymandering by repubs. If dems garner way more votes and wind up with a lot fewer seats, the only reason is gerrymandering on a national scale that far exceeds whatever you are asserting dems have done.

IF the charge was marginal, it wouldn't prove anothing, but marginal it is not.

The point of the chart is not a state analysis, it's a NATIONWIDE analysis.

The first one, 54 seat pick up was accomplished in 1994, that would be going on the 1990 census with redistricting done prior to the 1992 election. The Democrats had a 29-21 governor advantage. So for that election I would imagine the democrats did more gerrymandering than the GOP. I don't have anything on who controlled the state legislatures at that time. Also the Democrats had 258 seats to defend which the loss of 54 dropped them down to 204.

The second one 2010 was done on the 2000 census. The census for 2010 wouldn't take effect on redistricting until the 2012 election. 2010 was ten years after the 2000 census and the fifth congressional election going by the 2000 census. The Republicans controlled the governorship's 30-20, again not knowing about the state legislatures. All sorts of gerrymandering possible by the GOP. Regardless, in 2010 the democrats had 257 seats to defend, loss 63 ending up with 193.

After the 2010 census, the Republicans had a scant 26-24 advantage in governors, again not knowing who had what state legislature. So both side probably evened things out via gerrymandering. Remember the GOP howls about Illinois and New York while the Democrats howled about Texas and North Carolina. The GOP was defending 240 seats, 17 and 18 seats less than the Democrats in 1994 and 2010, they lost 40 of them.

The problem in using national figures is the house elections aren't national. They're 435 separate elections. There's been many times a party received the higher percentage of the vote and still lost seats. 435 different elections, not one. One party wins a lot of close elections while the other party wins by large amounts in their districts. Lots of different reasons. One thing to remember, when you have more seats to defend, you can lose more.

Now I'm not for gerrymandering at all. I'm 100% against it. Perhaps one last way to look at the results. 2016 presidential election. It was 50 different elections held in 50 different states. sure, Hillary won the nationwide popular vote, but lost in the electoral college. She lost more of the 50 different elections than Trump did.

The same applies to the house. Instead of 50, you have 435 different elections. The popular vote total nationwide means about as much as the popular vote does in the presidential. We do not have a parliamentary system. Where seats are allocated via the national percentage of the total vote. We go one district at a time.
 

The fivethirtyeight article is great. So, firstly, I didn't say that "self sorting" doesn't exist (I hate the term because I don't think 95% of Americans have politics in mind when they decide what neighborhood to live in). I actually said that it did exist but that it's not unique to one party. It's right there at the top of my long paragraph that you quoted. But let's quote the article you linked to:

In 1996, there were 1,111 counties (about 35 percent of the total)5 where the margin in the presidential vote was within 10 percentage points of the nationwide margin. By 2016, that number had plummeted to just 310 (about 10 percent).

Of course, if your goal in redistricting is to prioritize drawing competitive districts, you can improve on the current situation. When we redrew every state map in the country specifically to prioritize competitive districts, we managed to get 242 districts with a partisan lean of less than 10 points toward either party.

So you can make state elections fairer and gerrymandering is used as a weapon by whichever party is in charge. Your argument should be that the bigger problem is _______. I don't know what you think it is, but the assertion made by the aforementioned article is that the bigger problem is extremism and the fact that more extreme candidates are winning nominations at a higher clip than we've ever seen in our lives. There's no one culprit for that phenomenon and it belongs in a completely different thread. So I'll leave it at what's relevant: gerrymandering exists, is a problem, and fixing that problem is part of making our government more representative of the people.
 
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