NationStates Jolt Archive

((OOC: As you probably know, american politicians are fond of gerrymandering, which is changing district borders to keep incumbents in power -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Illinois_District_4_2004.png for an example and http://www.rangevoting.org/SplitLR.html on how to fix it.))

Anti-Gerrymandering Law
Category: The Furtherment of Democracy
Strength: Significant

In too many nations of the UN, corrupt politicians can get away with gerrymandering (changing districts to keep the incumbents in power). Therefore, this resolution will require all UN nations with voting districts to use the Splitline method:

1. Start with the boundary outline of the state/province.
2. Let N=A+B where A and B are as nearly equal whole numbers as possible. (For example, 7=4+3.)
3. Among all possible dividing lines that split the state into two parts with population ratio A:B, choose the shortest.
4. We now have two hemi-states, each to contain a specified number (namely A and B) of districts. Handle them recursively via the same splitting procedure.

Not all UN Nations have elections.

... or districts, or boundaries, or states, or provinces.

In Frisbeeteria, people vote according to their occupation. Large occupations have larger representation, so there's a very good chance that I can have an occupational representative who directly represents the views I share. It makes more sense than some arbitrary geographic assignment.

Incidentally and before you ask, "students" are an occupation. "The unemployed" are not. If you don't work in this nation, you don't vote.

Incidentally and before you ask, "students" are an occupation. "The unemployed" are not. If you don't work in this nation, you don't vote.Can I move to Frisbeeteria?

The Splitline method fails to take into account communities of interest and other vital concerns in districting. The methods of the Commission on Low Council Districts work fine.

Darren Funkel
Acting Goobergunchian UN Ambassador
Founder, Democratic Underground region

[ooc:

I know that didn't sound like Darren, but this is an issue I'm actually somewhat interested in IRL and didn't really feel like giving it a smug dismissal. Although it's really a matter for General, I'll repost a comment I made in a thread on my dorm's chat list during the summer on this topic:

The current state of gerrymandering in U.S. congressional maps is a bit ridiculous. However, I believe that representatives that actually represent a constituency are better for civic debate then representatives from a polygon that come from one part of the district and don't really represent the other part, and I'd rather see population guidelines tweaked slightly (in a country with a district of 900k people (MT-AL) and a district of 494k people (WY-AL), I think we can have a little intrastate variation) to ensure districts that actually make sense to the people living in them. Although the RangeVoting.org people feel that rivers and county lines can be redefined by gerrymanderers at any time, I think that redrawing, say, Montgomery County in Pennsylvania would be somewhat difficult, seeing as it has only been there since 1784.]

Very few of the St Edmundan Antarctic's people actually live within this nation's own territories, for reasons that I presume will be obvious to most people here, so that any hypothetical division of those territories into districts for electoral purposes would be useless. We simply allow any group of our citizens that can muster an appropriate number of votes to select one of their members as their representative, instead.

I'm not sure this would even apply to most nations with an electoral system. Many democratic nations don't have a district system; I believe "first past the post" is mostly unique to the United States and Commonwealth nations. But in most of those nations, the districts are drawn by judges, not politicians, like we do here in America. This is chiefly an American concern, and not a matter for an NSUN proposal.

While I agree with Goobergunchia that some gerrymandering is necessary, that's a matter for General.

What's "american"

What's "democracy"? :p

If you don't like my wording, feel free to suggest some wording of your own. It doesn't change the fact, however, that less than 10% of US districts are competitive.

Um, it's not the wording that's the problem. Have you been paying attention?

Oh, that's right... some people don't realize that only nations with voting districts are affected, some people fail to realize that voting districts and counties are NOT the same thing, and some people realize that this resolution does not apply to nations without elections.

Someone, please remind me why I waste my time posting resolution drafts eher *before* I become completely cynical.

Oh, that's right... some people don't realize that only nations with voting districts are affected, some people fail to realize that voting districts and counties are NOT the same thing, and some people realize that this resolution does not apply to nations without elections.

Someone, please remind me why I waste my time posting resolution drafts eher *before* I become completely cynical.Because it's not time wasted? Because it provides an author an opportunity to explore the weaknesses of his proposal prior to submitting it and getting it deleted for violating rules? Because well-written legislation is GOOD and poorly conceived and written legislation is BAD, to quote one of our newer members?

It's not impossible to write an FoD proposal that addresses fairness in government, but micromanaging a political process that is only used by a fraction of the members in the first place isn't it.

some people realize that this resolution does not apply to nations without elections.UN Proposals need to apply to all (reasonable) UN Nations. A clean water act not applying to Wankistan because they live on Arrakis is fine. Wankistan has chosen to place themselves outside of the norm. However, nations not having elections, or not having districts is not unreasonable, and causes this Proposal to be irrelevent to huge swaths of the UN. That's why people are raising objections.

If you don't like my wording, feel free to suggest some wording of your own. It doesn't change the fact, however, that less than 10% of US districts are competitive.

OOC: Which has absolutely no bearing on NS.

This idea would have no effect on The Rogue Nation of Flibbleites. The majority of our voting boundaries are geographically defined which makes them fairly hard to alter.

Bob Flibble
UN Representative

The National Annex has only needed to change the district borders on a few occasions. Such a measure requires a vote of 75% or more in favor, and it also requires the approval of 3 members of the Council of Nevesá.

Our methods of handling this issue are, in my opinion, such that this resolution will complicate a system that is quite capable of preventing gerrymandering.

As such, it will not receive my support.

Good day.

Eros Tatriel
UN Rep. for Subistratica

((OOC: As you probably know, american politicians are fond of gerrymandering, which is changing district borders to keep incumbents in power -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Illinois_District_4_2004.png for an example and http://www.rangevoting.org/SplitLR.html on how to fix it.))

Anti-Gerrymandering Law
Category: The Furtherment of Democracy
Strength: Significant

In too many nations of the UN, corrupt politicians can get away with gerrymandering (changing districts to keep the incumbents in power). Therefore, this resolution will require all UN nations with voting districts to use the Splitline method:

1. Start with the boundary outline of the state/province.
2. Let N=A+B where A and B are as nearly equal whole numbers as possible. (For example, 7=4+3.)
3. Among all possible dividing lines that split the state into two parts with population ratio A:B, choose the shortest.
4. We now have two hemi-states, each to contain a specified number (namely A and B) of districts. Handle them recursively via the same splitting procedure.

Good in theory. However, I see a flaw. Certain states have higher populations than others, so splitting a state in half would give certain voting districts more power per person than others. Instead of splitting the state in half, the government really should split it based on population. Making this change will likely do you well, at least in my eyes.

-Nobah D. Kairs
UN Ambassador
The Rogue Hodgepodge of Existing reality

"Voting in the Commonwealth involves a direct vote of each Citizen, with no differentiation whatsoever between each person's vote, be it geographic or otherwise.

"In short, the CWG view of this is: Meh."

I'm afraid this concept of gerrymandering is confusing. In Tanular, our esteemed leader casts the vote of all our citizens at the same time, making all decisions unanimous. The people know that our leader is the only person who has the time and effort to put intensive study into these issues, and so they expect him to do the right thing. How does gerrymandering work then? Your law seems to imply the impossible is possible, and we don't like that.

"Freeing the people from thought and responsibility."
Yes, thats our motto.

I'm afraid this concept of gerrymandering is confusing. In Tanular, our esteemed leader casts the vote of all our citizens at the same time, making all decisions unanimous. The people know that our leader is the only person who has the time and effort to put intensive study into these issues, and so they expect him to do the right thing. How does gerrymandering work then? Your law seems to imply the impossible is possible, and we don't like that.

"Freeing the people from thought and responsibility."
Yes, thats our motto.

Let's call a spade a spade here. You've got one guy making all the decisions for your nation. That's no democracy, that's the textbook definition of a dictatorship.

Bob Flibble
UN Representative

So? Technically, its a representative democracy of the simplest sort...in Tanular everyone expects the leader to make the descisions for them. Sure, its also technically a dictatorship, but that was my point. An even better example was given by the CWG...this bill applies to a very small portion of UN nations, and it would be unfair for the entirety to dictate to a small group...the tyranny of the majority is still a tyranny.

I think Cobdenia might be interested in a bit of Gerrymandering - a bit of South Lorenya should do the trick. Not that it will increase our status in the UN, but, well, Cobdenia is getting awfully crowded, and some of the Native Regiments are getting a bit bored sitting around, doing nothing. The 21st St. Bartlett's Own Frontier Cavalry could do with a bit of action, as could the 3rd Bn the 64th Pretamanger Pioneers, the 18th Ninblundo Lancer, The 1st Bn of the 78th Moplah Rifles... the list is endless, and horribly beweaponed...

Threads like these illustrate very well why resolutions should not be started based on events in real life.