16h ago

Gerrymandering erodes confidence in democracy

news.ucr.edu

When politicians redraw congressional district maps to favor their party, they may secure short-term victories. But those wins can come at a steep price — a loss of public faith in elections and, ultimately, in democracy itself.

21 comments

Blatant election tampering erodes confidence in democracy? Who could have seen that development?
Gerrymandering erodes 𝖼̶𝗈̶𝗇̶𝖿̶𝗂̶𝖽̶𝖾̶𝗇̶𝖼̶𝖾̶ ̶𝗂̶𝗇̶ democracy. FIFU
- 𝖼̶𝗈̶𝗇̶𝖿̶𝗂̶𝖽̶𝖾̶𝗇̶𝖼̶𝖾̶ ̶𝗂̶𝗇̶
  Markdown (which Lemmy supports) can do that, too:
  ~~confidence in~~
  ~~confidence in~~
  
  I tried in the editor, but it failed for some reason. That's why I used this.
Remove every peaceful option, see what's left
- People roll over and die? That seems to be the American response so far.
- Almost sounds like a Sherlock Holmes quote.
It's a feature, not a bug.
"If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.” - David Frum
- Exactly. When people lose faith in democracy, leaders have free rein.
Of course gerrymandering erodes democracy, that's the point
Clearly we need ranked choice and no electoral college. 🤷‍♂️
- We need proportional representation, but ranked choice is much better than what most of us have now.
- Agree on both points, but gerrymandering doesn't apply to the function of the EC. Even with Ranked Choice voting, they would still be susceptible to gerrymandering. Independent redistricting commissions seem like the best compromise, but then you get into a situation where not all states are playing by the same rules, and actually supporting your citizens rights is bad for the country if an equally large state can gerrymander the shit out of districts.
  The article does suggest also having "proportional representation, in which parties win seats based on their share of the statewide vote, rather than in winner-take-all districts" which remove a lot of the fuss about districts maps, but would still probably still disenfranchise some voters. I also can't imagine a ballot in a big state like CA or TX having to rank 70+ representatives for your house seat.
  The unfortunate reality is the politicians currently in power would rather pull up the ladder and secure their seat than make things more fair and add more ladders.
  
  Of course, we are fucked. It’s all over. The best outcome we can hope for at this point is a civil war
Is this news? When I lived in ohio I knew my votes on state issues were a protest, not anything relevant. They drew the maps to guarantee their victory. The only votes that mattered were state constitution referendums, presidential votes (not primary because we were post super Tuesday), and local governance
No shit
Undemocratic thing is undemocratic.
Shocked Pikachu
That’s the point.
Yeah...but at this point there's more important things at stake :/ (referring to Newsom's effort)

21 comments