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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRepublicans have rigged state elections all over the country to keep Republicans in power
Republicans have rigged state elections all over the country to keep Republicans in power
In 2012, Barack Obama was elected President by nearly 3.5 million votes. In Congressional races, Democrats drew nearly 1.4 million more votes than Republicans yet Republicans won control of the House 234 seats to 201 seats.
Source: Mother Jones.
And yeah, Maryland and Illinois are gerrymandered for the Democratic Party. This is wrong.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/republicans-gerrymandering-house-representatives-election-chart
MORE:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/03/1341253/-Perhaps-the-biggest-difference-between-Republicans-and-Democrats#
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,355 posts)That independent commissions should be the ones drawing up maps. Neither party should enjoy a partisan advantage when it comes to creating state and Congressional districts.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)both sides agree to fuck the voters equally.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)You enter how many people live where and you add the boundary-conditions that districts have to be as close as possible to a circular shape.
It would be a matter of minutes to have a computer calculate that and the result would be non-partisan.
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)Mr.Bill
(24,104 posts)who programmed the computer. From what I'm seeing on political websites today, both sides have plenty of complaints about computers that record and count votes. Computers don't have independent non partisan minds of their own, they only do what a human designs and programs them to do.
In principal your idea is a good one, but someone will always claim fraud even if computers are involved.
Volaris
(10,260 posts)meaning the code that runs the computer is a matter of public record, and any kid in their basement can download the software, and use it to run mocks on their own machine, and sort through the code to look for errors/mistakes/intentional fraud. You find something out of sorts, your legally obligated to report it, that's the terms for being able to download and look through it.
I think the same should be done for Publicly-Owned E-Voting machines. Make the code locked and unalterable, but make it Public and Open Source so anybody can know what it's doing and how it works.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)Step 1: Source-code would be open-source.
Step 2: At the given date, several PCs that have been tested and conform to a variety of security-standards will receive and run the program simultaneously. Without randomization-elements in the code and with identical starting-conditions, every calculator should arrive at the same result.
tclambert
(11,080 posts)Any software involving elections should be open-source, but of course, the corporations selling the software want to keep it private, and leave us in the dark about any possible vote-flipping subroutines.
ashling
(25,771 posts)I think you mean to say re-districting rather than gerrymandering
Bettie
(15,998 posts)It could be done by a computer program, "draw a box around X population, with variables input for exceptions, like county lines, town boundaries, etc.
Kablooie
(18,572 posts)it would give the Democrats an unfair advantage.
Or maybe a fair advantage, same thing.
Bettie
(15,998 posts)The advantage it would give Dems would be representation proportional to the level of support their policies have in the general public.
I know that the powers that be hate the idea of that.
Blue Owl
(49,937 posts)n/t
EEO
(1,620 posts)agreeing to allow any other political parties into the game.
certainot
(9,090 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Nice illustration of how unfair it all is.
Keep in mind that they ALSO went national with the techniques they learned in the South to suppress the black vote. Only now it covers young people and women and ALL minorities.
PLUS: There's the fact that the Republicans pull most of their crap in the rural areas and Dems refuse to fight or even QUESTION it when some "Red" district has 100% voter turnout with 100% of the people voting GOP. Really? You guys don't believe there's a SINGLE person in the whole district that would vote for you? Not even ONE??? Come on! There's not a single first time voter that voted just to be a rebel or to piss off their parents? Are you THAT terrified of charging the GOP with ACTUAL "vote fraud"? How about when the turnout is 110% or 300%? You won't even question it then?
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)And it was NOT challenged by the Democratic Party?
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)geretogo
(1,281 posts)randys1
(16,286 posts)RedCloud
(9,230 posts)How I have waited in vain for someone in prominence to utter those words. I don't even think the more "main stream" Republicans would vote GOP if they knew they were supporting a lazy person.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Message received!!!
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)rickford66
(5,498 posts)Let the minority party draw them up.