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by sqeaky 3314 days ago
What about ignore how report works and fixing the gerrymandering?

I don't know how, but lets presume there is some way to fix gerrymandering so that a legislators constituency was a statistically fair representation of their region/state. Then the extreme views would be canceled out and the best way to win a primary would be to win a primary would be to appeal to the moderates.

1 comments

I agree, gerrymandering is also a big problem. John Oliver did a good segment about the justification behind bizarrely drawn districts, which kind of makes sense, so the real problem is leaving this power in the hands of the people who have an incentive to abuse it for their own benefit.
Fair elections are supposed to the check on abuse. If constituents fairly re-elect people who line their own pockets, presumably that is what they want.

No amount of fair or unfair reporting will sway the minds of left wing or wing right loyalist entrenched in their view that their team is correct. A mix of opinions is required to get a different result on a given issue in a Democracy.

I don't know of any fair way to do it and I see the potential for abuse, but it makes want a poll test of some kind. No voting without critical thinking and a basic understanding of the issues you are voting on. But that can't work without abuse in anything like our current system. Fixing districts and voting methods is probably the best we can do until we see what problems that raises.