How Wisconsin GOP uses computers to maintain control "in all but the most extreme circumstances"-NYT

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/opinion/sunday/computers-gerrymandering-wisconsin.html

How Computers Turned Gerrymandering Into a Science
By JORDAN ELLENBERG | OCT. 6, 2017

MADISON, Wis. — About as many Democrats live in Wisconsin as Republicans do. But you wouldn’t know it from the Wisconsin State Assembly, where Republicans hold 65 percent of the seats, a bigger majority than Republican legislators enjoy in conservative states like Texas and Kentucky.

The United States Supreme Court is trying to understand how that happened. On Tuesday, the justices heard oral arguments in Gill v. Whitford, reviewing a three-judge panel’s determination that Wisconsin’s Republican-drawn district map is so flagrantly gerrymandered that it denies Wisconsinites their full right to vote. A long list of elected officials, representing both parties, have filed briefs asking the justices to uphold the panel’s ruling.

Other people don’t see a problem. Politics, they say, is a game where whoever’s ahead gets to change the rules on the fly. It’s about winning, not being fair.

But this isn’t just a politics story; it’s also a technology story. Gerrymandering used to be an art, but advanced computation has made it a science. Wisconsin’s Republican legislators, after their victory in the census year of 2010, tried out map after map, tweak after tweak. They ran each potential map through computer algorithms that tested its performance in a wide range of political climates. The map they adopted is precisely engineered to assure Republican control in all but the most extreme circumstances.

[Angry Dragon]

1. One part really stood out to me

Politics, they say, is a game where whoever is ahead gets to change the rules on the fly. It’s about winning, not being fair.

Anyone who truly believes this does not belong in politics and is just evil

[WhiteTara]

2. Absolutely true.

[CrispyQ]

4. I never understood voting for a candidate who openly admits to hating government.

Since Reagan, the GOP has not been secretive that it hates government & wants to drown it in a bathtub. And after 30 years of trickle down failure, Americans still vote for the GOP. OTOH, we claim to be the smart party & yet the GOP controls all three branches of the federal govt & a majority of the state govts, too. We know they don't play fair, but we continue to abide by the rules. Somethings got to give or we are going to lose our country. Maybe we already have.

[pansypoo53219]

3. cheating. no other term should be used.