Democrats need to campaign in red states, not just swing states. It took the GOP decades of planning to gerrymander us into the condition we're in. Democrats need to take a similarly long view, especially as they are the party addressing long term issues like climate.
We need to ELIMINATE GERRYMANDERING all across the country. Just do straight lines across all states, in equal squares- those will be the districts.
DIVE GEORGRAPHY not POLITICAL /RACIAL IDENTITY
@QueenOfEverything
Unfortunately, that creates a map where people in densely populated cities get the same amount of representation as cows in farmland.
@AlphaCentauri @QueenOfEverything
Better is to use open source algorithms that only consider population and optimize for simple, compact shapes with the same population
https://theconversation.com/can-math-solve-the-congressional-districting-problem-44963
Open source algorithms would be just fine.
Gerrymanderimg needs to be completely eliminated.
@QueenOfEverything @BrentSullivan
They had school kids in PA try, and they all did better than the legislators.
The school kids wold say get rid of gerrymandering, eliminate the Electoral Council, and use set amounts of federal funding to support qualified candidates for office. No outside funding.
@QueenOfEverything @AlphaCentauri @BrentSullivan
Make elections boards impartial(ie in Canada, the elections are run by Elections Canada). Do not make people register to vote with mention of your party affiliation. So much can be done to fix the US 'DEMOCRACY"
@ProudCanadianAthiest @QueenOfEverything @AlphaCentauri
How are the boards made impartial?
I'm a fan of the open source algorithms because once the rules of the algorithm are agreed to, there are no people involved-- just run the algorithm after each census
@BrentSullivan @QueenOfEverything @AlphaCentauri
Elections Canada is the independent, non-partisan agency responsible for conducting federal elections and referendums.
So its setup as a government agency. So no party assigns any members to it, they are hired based on merits.
@BrentSullivan @QueenOfEverything @AlphaCentauri
Also the other thing I had mentioned about registering for voting. Nobody needs to know your party affiliation so they cannot gerrymander since they know where their members reside.
All the elections ridings in Canada are decided on number of voters in a certain district. Recent elections in BC had the number ridings increased due to population increase.
@ProudCanadianAthiest @BrentSullivan @QueenOfEverything
The reason for party affiliation when registering to vote is that although taxpayers pay for running primary elections, it's actually for the benefit of the political parties. Many states have "closed primaries" where only people registered to vote as members of that party can vote for their candidates in the primary. They can only vote for candidates from a different party in the final general election.
@AlphaCentauri @BrentSullivan @QueenOfEverything
In Canada the primaries are called nomination meetings. These meetings and nominations are done by party and their members. So only the party knows their card carrying members who get to nominate their people. The party pays for these nominations out of pocket. So never a burden on tax payers.
@ProudCanadianAthiest @QueenOfEverything @AlphaCentauri
Definitely a massive improvement compared to the US system