Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Retric 3176 days ago
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.

1 comments

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)

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.

> 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!