In
the Shadow of the Screw.
 In
the 2012 national elections North Carolina had
thirteen Congressional seats up for grabs, and the
turnout was 51% Democratic and 49% Republican. You
might guess
that the thirteen seats were, therefore, split 50-50
or thereabouts, but you'd be wrong.
The total was nine Republican seats and four Democratic
seats. Yes, Democrats voted more
but got less. A whole lot less.
The reason for this ghastly result began back
in 2010 when the Republican Party dumped huge amounts
of money
into
rural contests
in North Carolina. (The GOP also did this in seven
other states, too.) By overwhelming under-funded opponents
with PAC cash they
earned enough
seats to
take control
of the legislature and
subsequently
proceeded
to gerrymander the shit of the place, packing the Democrats
into nice, neat little districts wayyyyyy off to the
side.
Even worse, in the seven states where Republicans redrew
districts in 2010 Democrats and Republicans split
the 2012 vote 50-50 (about 16 million votes each),
but the result was 73 Republican seats and 34 Democratic
seats.
Yeah, that's pretty fucked up, and it's very unhealthy
for a semi-functioning democracy, though just dandy
for an oligarchy. What's
worse is
we're
stuck with
this nonsense for the next
8 years.
Gerrymandering is legal because, like porn, it's difficult
to define, so as long as we leave it to politicians
to determine who votes for whom, we're screwed. So,
instead, let's leave it to mathematicians. Watch the
video below about the Shortest-Splitline Algorithm
and see
if you
don't agree that there is a better way.
=Lefty=
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