Categories
What gerrymandering looks like in Texas – politicalbetting.com
What gerrymandering looks like in Texas – politicalbetting.com
Dan Crenshaw’s (R-TX) district is what we mean when we say gerrymandering is a problem. pic.twitter.com/eNlJ9Kov7c
1
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
And it's a lovely evening too.
How so?
Because they are devised on known principles by an independent body.
As someone whos mother was born a foreigner but has been a British Citizen for at least 25 years (and suffers from mental health problems) stories like this really boils my piss
On the other hand, US congressional districts are much more balanced (in total population, our constitutional standard) than UK parliamentary constituencies, which allow large deviations, for example in rural areas.
By comparison, here in WA State, deviation between largest & smallest CD population, when they were created in 2011 based on 2010 census, was less than 10 people.
Interesting to note that in WA both legislative & congressional redistricting is done, not by the legislature and/or governor, but by an "independent" commission, comprised on one member appointed by each legislative caucus (House Dems, House Reps, Senate Reps, Senate Dems) and non-voting chair. Thus to obtain a majority for ANY plan, bipartisan agreement is essential.
Meaning that the GREATEST good turns out to be . . . wait for it . . . incumbent protection. With number of true "swing districts" kept to absolute minimum.
MD# 2 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Maryland_US_Congressional_District_2_(since_2013).tif
MD #3 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Maryland_US_Congressional_District_3_(since_2013).tif/lossless-page1-2098px-Maryland_US_Congressional_District_3_(since_2013).tif.png
MD #4 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Maryland_US_Congressional_District_4_(since_2013).tif
MD #7 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Maryland_US_Congressional_District_7_(since_2013).tif
MD #8 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Maryland_US_Congressional_District_8_(since_2013).tif
We expect rank incompetence from the Home Office, but sending letters advising people what they need to do to too many people is better than not sending it to enough then having consequences for people years down the line.
And please note, that Baarle-Hertog / Baarle-Nassau geography consists of enclaves and exclaves and one inside the other. Whereas all of the congressional districts are at least (technically) contiguous with the various bits & pieces connected by roads & bridges.
Entirely possible for databases not to line up sometimes. Eg if a database says that a Mr Philip Thompson has settled status, while another database says that a Mr Phillip Thompson exists and no settled status exists, then should a letter be sent?
What about if a Mr Mark Smith has settled status, who lives with his cousin Mr Marc Smith who doesn't have settled status, should the latter receive a letter?
Without an overhaul or a single unified system and single unified ID Card Number in every single database it will be impossible to shear out 100% of people whom shouldn't receive the letter without also catching cousins, siblings and others meaning that people who needed the letter don't get it.
How about we send everyone a letter saying they are being investigated for tax and benefit fraud or child abduction?
If it says "Please disregard if it doesn't apply to you", that'll be OK. That way we won't miss any of the guilty.
Best solution may have been to send it to every household as part of a public education campaign, but that might have cost too mcuh.
I expect finding areas sufficiently dense with LibDems or Greens for them to win more seats might be hard.
I agree about ID cards. I was legally obliged to carry one for years. Did I always? No. Was I imprisoned for not doing so? No. Was it an outrageous infringement on my liberty? No.
Don't really empathise with the visceral objection.
Edit. We have an ID number. It's called an NHS number. It has proved crucially effective in our vaccine rollout success.
That's my point, the numbers don't talk to each other. The databases don't talk to each other. So how do they double-check without cutting out people who do need the letter, if the databases aren't using the same index as each other? Not every database uses the NHS number, or NI number, or other unique identifier as the database index.
The objection to ID cards in part was that it was designed to have a single unique identifier that all databases could use to link to each other. Which is a disturbing dystopian concept as far as I'm concerned - yes it would make governance more effective, no it is not a good idea at all.
Unless I'm misunders you, you make out like you're one who wants a small state, but now you're whinging that we don't have a humongous interlinked government database ensuring that civil servants can look up every element of your life in one mammoth database with a single ID number for everything you've ever done? Seriously!?
You seem to be under the impression there is only one database that links your name to ni number when in fact loads of them do
The last thing I want is civil servants in the Home Office to have every bit of government data on you ever recorded by any means, for any reason, all interlinked and accessible on demand by a single ID number. That is a dystopian nightmare I do not trust our Civil Servants with. That is the stuff of nightmares that feeds the Chinese state, not something we want or need in this country.
That our countries databases don't all talk to each other is to me a feature not a bug.
And as I said, the databases may not talk to each other.
If they have a database of foreign nationals that does not include NI numbers, then how do you parse that with a database of settled, without resulting in errors?
Again, worse that someone gets missed than someone gets a letter they can disregard.
The Boundary Commission is one thing I am unashamedly able to say is a very good thing about the UK.
I could do without Microsoft making me use cumbersome passwords to log on to my home computer, too, and the spread of two-factor authentication for trivial uses like making a Sainsbury order, as if gangs of crooks were going to pretend to be me so they could buy some cheese.
Enough ranting, good night all!
Are you sure you trust every civil servant and possible government with such an exorbitant amount of power and data? I don't.
Perhaps this points to a particularly American solution to the problem, instead of lamenting their inability to implement a British-style independent commission. Let the legislators create the districts as now, but limit the number of vertices used to describe the shape of the resultant boundaries (not counting vertices used wholly to follow State boundaries). Four vertices should probably be enough, but I'm willing to compromise and let them have six, or maybe eight.
Next year.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/COVID-vaccines/Japan-to-allow-emergency-vaccine-rollouts-without-clinical-trials
But one good thing about the latest legislative changes is its work should not be held up this time.
I bet the PM's been listening to her.
https://boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/2023-review/guide-to-the-2023-review-of-parliamentary-constituencies/
The current dramatic realignment (temporary or progressive, take your pick) is of course rendering the effect of current boundaries more random, as far as the number and location of marginal seats is concerned.
"This Commission has applied the same distribution formula to the English allocation, which results in the following redistribution of constituencies among the English regions for the 2023 Review:
Eastern = 61 (increase of three)
East Midlands = 47 (increase of one)
London = 75 (increase of two)
North East = 27 (decrease of two)
North West = 73 (decrease of two)
South East = 91 (increase of seven)
South West = 58 (increase of three)
West Midlands = 57 (decrease of two)
Yorkshire and the Humber = 54 (no change)"
In the event the swing in 1997 was so big that Labour won four of the five, but the situation returned to 3:2 thereafter until 2015.
Look at any political party’s counter-proposal to the commission and it is almost always to create more winnable seats for their own side, at the expense of genuine electoral marginals.
Freedom is not at the behest of the Government to bestow upon our citizens. There was an excellent piece about this by Tim Stanley in yesterday's D. Tel:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/17/manipulated-brits-still-covid-leash2/
Apologies that it's behind a paywall
There is not the slightest evidence that the Indian strain is a greater risk than any other and next month it will be the Ulan Batur strain, then the Nauru strain, then the Tamanrasset one.
It's an utter nonsense. Get vaccinated and live your life. Thank the Government for your vaccine but never, ever, thank them for your freedom. It is not theirs to hand down like some beneficent overlord. It's your right.
They win?
The Boundary Commission is one thing I am unashamedly able to say is a very good thing about the UK.
Even so, the pressure on it from the political parties, backed by the large majority of “public representations” from tame party members and the like, are always towards creating more safe seats. Which is what has tended to happen, as you can judge at times when the electoral climate is relatively stable.
The current dramatic realignment (temporary or progressive, take your pick) is of course rendering the effect of current boundaries more random, as far as the number and location of marginal seats is concerned.
The Tory Red Wall seats should offer an interesting element to some of the boundary discussions in NE and NW England.
- urban 20-35 year olds who drink tea
- small town 70+ who own their own homes
- lovers of ska music
Etc.
People could even be assigned to (say) three affinity groupings, so as to make more competitive seats, and to ensure that you had more than one representative.
The problem is that political parties insert themselves into the process.
Good one this, CNN’s Chris Cuomo visibly gets the fear in his eyes as he realises what he’s being told is deadly serious.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/05/18/government-report-ufo-cuomo-intv-cpt-vpx.cnn
In the UK, Instead of adapting the boundaries to fit a single member seat, we could simply set the number of MPs to fit the boundaries of a city or county. For example, everyone knows where the boundary of Cornwall is, on the River Tamar. In 2019 with six single member seats Cornwall got six Conservatives. With fair voting system the result would be more like 3-4 Tories, 1-2 Labour, 1 Lib Dem. As it is 47% of the votes in Cornwall are ignored and 53% of the vote gets 100% of the power. The same applies in reverse in Merseyside, with 14 of the 15 seats held by Labour, despite the other parties getting over a third of the vote.
That is a fixed system and eventually it will blow up in the faces of the self serving politicos who prefer the convenience (for them) of safe seats instead of a genuinely competitive election.
Much of the polarisation of British politics can be put down to the safe seats, and in truth if all seats were competitive then the standard of politics and of politicians in Britain might well be a lot higher. If only Margaret Thatcher had beleived in a free market in politics then the added competition might have solved many of the problems that we face today.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
Not perfect, and setting the terms has an impact, but by and large it gets the job done.
And while Cicero raises some decent points the fact is not everywhere is Cornwall - county boundaries are not always great for drawing lines between where people actually live, nor are settlement boundaries. Look at Reading/Wokingham (settlement, I dont know if the seats make sense). My town had a 4000 population contiguous 'village' in another sear as ostensibly it was separate and that made the numbers game work. Nothings perfect.
The Conservative submission was accepted and the subsequent proposal had the ward in two parts without even a road link between them. When i pointed this out, they tweaked the boundary so that it ran along the middle of a road; to get from one part of the ward to another without leaving it, you now need to drive on the north side of the road in both directions. Progress, I guess.
Taking Mr B2's point, it's often argued that rivers are natural boundaries, whereas sometimes they provide areas with a community of interests. And there are some rather strange boundaries in this part of Essex.
Safe seats make for bad politics. We cannot "chuck them out" for being useless drones when they are in safe seats, only the parties can by deselection, so we wind up with party hacks gifted with permanent jobs.
So it's about priorities and my priority would have been to get rid of all that bullshit first before foreign travel.
There are communities growing up on the edge of Swindon that align to it but are not in the unitary, so it's probably hard to get them the Parliamentary rep that is most appropriate.
Flawed but mostly works - that's Britain.
The Commission wasn’t going to touch a proposal like this and took the Labour counter-proposal in preference, which was equally biased but less incredibly argued.
And geography to ensure the local community has a representative that cares about that community. At least that's the idea.
Betting PostGood morning, everyone.
F1: it's Monaco, unfortunately, next. However, Perez has a good track record there and one of the Red Bull's main disadvantages is on straight line top end pace. This is not exactly a key feature of the tight processional circuit in Monte Carlo.
Accordingly, I've put tiny sums at 16 and 26 on Perez for the win and pole (both each way, odds with boost at Ladbrokes).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatton_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_1990s
To take another example I am in Dundee West for Westminster, Angus South for Holyrood and Angus Council for local government. There is no coherent community but Dundee West would not be large enough anymore if it did not absorb some villages on the outskirts like mine. Which is fine. I get a vote and I get a representative who I can approach should I ever need to. Which has never happened by the way, let's not overstate the politician's significance.
If you are selected as Labour candidate for Bootle or Tory candidate for Sevenoaks, I’d say your job is as good as sewn up for life. Your voters will never be canvassed and will count themselves lucky if they ever see an election leaflet, probably just the one delivered by the Royal Mail at taxpayers’ expense.
OFQUAL have given so much confused guidance that teachers have publicly and quite seriously asked if they are smoking weed. They have said we must complete rigorous assessments, to use as evidence, but we shouldn’t set lots of exams. I mean come off it...
And there’s now a move to refuse to pay exam boards this year on the grounds they are doing fuck all but charging the same amount of money for doing it.
https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-gcse-a-level-academy-trusts-mat-leaders-warn-exam-boards-over-gcse-bills
The situation is a shambles. Can you blame me for wanting to admire Lawrence’s batting for five minutes?
Hartlepool?
imagine the headlines
Tenth Recount in the OCD seat
Labour Insider parachuted into the Adrenaline Sports Lovers Seat
All candidates caught fiddling election expenses in the Fraudsters Seat (credit card division)