[dragontamer]

Which states are 80-20 in America?

Maryland is an example of a highly gerrymandered state (towards Democrats, although there are many Republican examples too). Maryland voted 60.5% Clinton / 35.3% Trump, which suggests that they have (roughly) 2 Democrats for every 1 Republican in the state.

However, due to the significant gerrymandering in Maryland, there is ONE Republican and SEVEN Democrats in the House. That's certainly not fair towards Republicans who live in Maryland.

EDIT: Apparently North Carolina is the Republican example to talk about, in case you want some "balance".

[Retric]

There are actually more extreme examples. Consider, Hillary Clinton got 90.9% of the DC vote Trump got 4.1%, I am not sure how you could slice up DC to get 10% Republican representation.

In Maryland's case it might be able to make 2 districts Republican, but that's assuming a very concentrated geographic minority which may or may not actually exist.

IMO, If we really want proportional representation then we should use a proportional system.

[dragontamer]

DC is a single city and doesn't even have one representative in Congress (Okay, they nominally have one. But she's non-voting so.... that's not really useful). They're technically a US Territory and have no more power than say Puerto Rico.

So once again, if you're talking about US Representatives and Voting Districts, it only makes sense to talk about well... Voting Districts. Name me one US State with 80/20 split and more than 1 US Representative. Ultimately, your hypothetical doesn't exist!

---------

That's the cool thing about politics: its real. There's no need to make up hypotheticals when we can just draw from the real world.

FYI: the discussion at hand is about US Representatives, and not about the Electoral College. Washington DC is therefore irrelevant, as it has no representatives. Washington DC does get 3 Electoral college votes, but that has nothing to do with Gerrymandering.

There's a variety of states who have "Representatives At Large", such as Wyoming, which are basically immune to Gerrymandering. The population is so low that Wyoming only gets 1-Representative, so the entire State is the whole district. There's really no "fair" way to cut up a single Representative (its all or nothing), but that's mostly due to the very low population of these states.

Basically, Gerrymandering can only be an issue in a state with more than 1 Representative.

[Retric]

These rules are not limited to National elections. State elections are also based on redistricting. DC is part of the US and has District Elections so these rules will apply to it.

https://www.dcboe.org/election_info/election_results/v3/2016...

So, no you can't dodge the question. And I ask you to draw a DC map with some Republican representation.

PS: AKA draw a map such that WARD EIGHT MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL is likely Republican.

[dragontamer]

I'm not sure why you're so obsessed with Washington DC in particular. If you live there, you probably know much more about it than I do.

But my general interest is how this whole event will play out in the greater scope of the country. I don't believe any US State with more than 1 Representative has an 80/20 split.

Perhaps Washington DC really is an edge case that needs to be thought out more. But I don't think its representative of the problems of Gerrymandering that exist in multiple states right now. (In particular, what this Gill v Whitford Supreme Court case is bringing up in Wisconsin)

[Retric]

You can find plenty of examples on both sides South Carolina sends 7 republicans an 1 Democrat to the house, but it's own biased house is 75 Republican to 45 Democrat. Which is a very safe majority of power, while still better representing the actual voting. It also contains wacky maps like this one: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/SC/2

Still, my concern is not about the results. My concern is how easy it is to game this proposal.

[dragontamer]

> Still, my concern is not about the results. My concern is how easy it is to game this proposal.

Approximately the same difficulty to game the US Court system.

At the end of the day, Judges will adapt the rules to future cases. Law is an innately human process, not the cold machine logic that most of us Computer Science folks deal with.

If a major mistake is made in the current rubric, future lawyers and judges will bring it up on a case-by-case basis. Unlike code, Law is pliable and changes on local conditions. The issue isn't the "edge cases" which are dealt with as they come up.

If the proposal isn't working for say, Washington DC, then you can expect a case to bubble up through the Washington DC Courts, to maybe the US Court of Appeals, and eventually back to the Supreme Court if its major enough. If its purely a Washington DC issue (and not applicable anywhere else), there might not be any need for the US Court of appeals or US Supreme Court to hear about the case!