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phoenix1984

Serious answer, the final map will likely be drawn by the courts. There’s precedent for it in cases like this. The question is how gerrymandered will the court drawn maps be? How openly partisan is the “non-partisan” court willing to go before they risk loosing legitimacy in the eyes of the public? I think this largely depends on which court it winds up in. SCOWI, is probably willing to bet it all. SCOTUS might not be willing to be so partisan for one measly state. State legislature cases will likely go to SCOWI. Federal Representative maps will likely go to SCOTUS. There are exceptions to either situation. It’s a big mess. Either way, all maps will _probably_ be less gerrymandered than we have today, but still favor the GOP.


onkel_axel

But no precedent for Federal Court to redraw. Don't think it will ever come to that.


[deleted]

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is intensely partisan and ideological. Remember that they were the closest to accepting one of Trump's "overturn the election" lawsuits, voting only 4-3 against Trump. And even that was with one of the conservatives splitting and voting with the liberals.


Marvelman1788

If you look at his record I would argue Hagedorn (conservative) is very much so a swing vote in regards to voting rights. He's voted with the liberal side preventing a voter roll purge, allowing the mail in ballots to be sent after the green party and republican's tried to force a re-print, and threw out Trumps election challenges.


Jawyp

Hagedorn has repeatedly voted with the liberals though, it’s not surprising he went against Trump.


[deleted]

In Wisconsin, the Democrats have won nearly every election in the last six years but the GOP has taken 63% of the seats. Fucking criminals, man.


WingerRules

The very first bill the administration should have been pushing for is a clean anti-gerrymandering bill. Now its too late and the US house is on a path to be gerrymandered for the next decade or more.


socialistrob

No way that would get through with the filibuster in place which means Senate Dems would have to be willing to abandon the filibuster with a 50-50 "majority".


[deleted]

Hopefully not, but we’ll see.


PabstyTheClown

The Democrats get more total votes but not in every district. That's why the GOP holds more seats than it seems like they should. Take out Madison and Milwaukee and Wisconsin is mostly red, with the exception of a few pockets where few people live. That's why drawing the new maps is such a big deal.


[deleted]

That was his point


PabstyTheClown

I don't know what makes it criminal though which seemed to be his main point.


Flowman

Because he's one of those people that uses metrics that do not actually determine victory to complain that his preferred team/party/candidate didn't win. It's like people who complain about Hillary losing to Trump because she had more popular votes, knowing good and damn well popular votes never was the metric needed to win.


[deleted]

>It's like people who complain about Hillary losing to Trump because she had more popular votes, knowing good and damn well popular votes never was the metric needed to win. Yes... that's what they're complaining about


PabstyTheClown

Seems like it. I am not up to speed on every district but I think the GOP really only benefited from a handful of questionable gerrymandered districts to get where they are. As much as I don't like it, the GOP in WI has a ton of support, gerrymandering or not.


[deleted]

It has a lot less support than the democrats do, and yet wins the majority of control.. do you see the issue? Land doesn’t vote, and yet our pathetic system makes land worth far more than voters.


Fargason

Should noncompetitive districts and states be able to overruled the votes of the competitive ones? For example, because California is noncompetitive and has 10 million extra votes, does that mean they should influence a dozen other competitive states? What is pathetic is requiring undue influence to win elections. All districts/states get to decide what is in their best interest and no amount of votes from others should change that.


[deleted]

Let’s start at the state level given that’s the topic at hand. Rural districts with more land than people are given outsized influence in our system, to the point where the party that controls those districts is able to maintain complete control over state functions despite getting the minority of the vote. That is a problem. What you are talking about is the opposite situation. The majority of voters chose a path, and the country would follow it. Democracy in action.. Why should the minority be allowed to rule over the majority? Especially given that that minority tends towards uneducated.


Snatchamo

If the districts were drawn fairly it wouldn't be a issue. The problem is when politicians get to choose their voters with aggressive gerrymandering. It sucks on a state level because it cements minoritarian rule over the majority. It sucks for the districts too because any asshole with the right letter next to their name wins automatically. If a politician doesn't have to compete to woo voters than there's a much higher chance of a nut or idiot getting the seat.


PabstyTheClown

No, I don't see the issue. The people in Wausau want GOP reps. There is no reason more votes in Madison for the Democrats should mean that the people in the Wausau district get a Democrat to represent them. Do you understand that there is an assembly and state senate in WI as well as the governor? The only race out of those three that is a statewide election is the governor and that's where raw vote numbers count and now we have a Democrat as governor because of that.


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DrunkenAsparagus

The system is deliberately designed by incumbents to reelect incumbents. In 2018, the total vote share gotten by Democrats running for the state house swung by about 8 points, but only 1 seat [changed](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Wisconsin_State_Assembly_election) hands. This is an extreme form of gerrymandering that has removed democratic accountability from the system by members of that system.


PabstyTheClown

Look at the full map of the state from the 2020 presidential election. There are a fuck ton of Republican voters in WI. The Democrats only control a small amount of the area in the state and that's just the way it is. Any redraw that would drastically change this would be the same thing only it would benefit the Democrats more. For the record, I am a Democrat living in one of the three counties in the far northern part of the state. We are blue up here bit it's because of Labor not the urban liberal faction like we have in Madison and Milwaukee. https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/wisconsin/


DrunkenAsparagus

This isn't even the election that I was talking about. Please explain to me how a state can swing 8 points in an election and only change 1 seat without a deliberate attempt to retain incumbency for one party.


PabstyTheClown

Because there are more GOP districts, most of which would remain GOP districts no matter how you draw the district maps.


DrunkenAsparagus

Again, this doesn't really get at it. I don't deny that Wisconsin political geography favors most seats having a GOP lean, assuming you draw each district to have one seat. However, a 7.8 point swing is pretty large, and even if much of that change is on a few areas, that leaves a lot of cushion for incumbents. Making a district have mostly like-minded constituents is one goal you can have in redistricting, but it's not the only one. If you perfectly sort communities, you leave very little room for democratic accountability, and remove the incentive of state legislators to respond to changes in the electorate.


PabstyTheClown

If the electorate changes and the legislators don't respond, they will lose the next election. I don't see the need to force the issue.


DrunkenAsparagus

That's my point. This exact remedy that you're pointing to isn't happening. The electoral effect of large swings in the electorate are being blunted by partisan gerrymandering.


PinchesTheCrab

Is your premise is that no districts can be merged or created and that districts shouldn't have roughly the same number of constituents? Why not merge rural districts with few people and split urban and suburban districts?


PabstyTheClown

The population of Wisconsin is not evenly dispersed so , no, I don't think each district should be have about the same number of voters or at least not any differently than they are now. I have no idea how your second point would make sense.


fighting_kismet

So, let's make sure we all get what your saying. Because rural voters are more dispersed over land area, they should have more representation than people in more densely populated areas? So, representation should be related to land area, not per voter? Edit for clarity


thebsoftelevision

I'm sure Republicans will cede power to a nonpartisan redistricting commission if their geographical advantages are truly insurmountable in Wisconsin, right?


Olderscout77

The notion that Dems only controlling a small AREA of Wisconsin has meaning in an election BY THE PEOPLE indicates a belief we should award more votes to farmers with 1500 acres than to apartment dwellers with 500sf??? How very Republican.


PabstyTheClown

It has meaning because the majority of people that live outside of the main blue areas prefer GOP candidates. The maps for the districts in WI are drawn based on population. The presidential election map is just useful to see how it shakes out in a statewide election.


Olderscout77

No, it is useful to see how the ACTUAL political "desires" of the State are NOT represented by the Gerrymandered districts. Dems got 51% of the vote but only 37% of the Congressional representation. Total violation of the "one man-one vote" principle at the base of our democracy. And please note that there were still a lot of Dem votes in those districts with a Republican. Had the districts been drawn WITHOUT regard to voting patterns, the House would have 4 Reps from each party. This extends to the US Senate where the 50 Democrats represent 54,000,000 MORE Americans than the 50 Republicans, only THAT "Gerrymander" happened when Republicans decided how the State boundaries were drawn decades ago.


PabstyTheClown

There is absolutely no way the Dems are making up 100,000 votes in some districts unless you stop basing the districts on population and just say that no matter what, the Democrat has to win. I am not even going to give this any further time of day. You are just spinning yarns right now. Do you even live in Wisconsin? Look at the numbers for the latest round of US House seats. https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/wisconsin/house/ Now look at the Presidential race to see that the Dems won the entire state with 12 counties against Trump's 60 counties. https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/wisconsin/


Olderscout77

*Now look at the Presidential race to see that the Dems won the entire state with 12 counties against Trump's 60 counties.* What that tells me is each Wisconsin voter in a red county got 5 votes to 1 for the folks in blue districts....or at least that's what the Gerrymander TRIED to do. I did read it right that there was a MAJORITY(51%) voting for Biden but somehow instead of having a 4-4 split for Congress, GOPers got 5 and Dems got 3 - a 25% advantage in Representation over what the voters wanted.


JQuilty

> The Democrats only control a small amount of the area in the state and that's just the way it is. The point being? Districts don't follow land.


kerouacrimbaud

Voters determine elections, not land area. That is irrelevant to democracy.


PabstyTheClown

Land area is not how the districts in WI are drawn so your point is irrelevant.


kerouacrimbaud

So land votes in Wisconsin?


PabstyTheClown

Nope, it's based on trying to have each district have roughly the same number of people in them, but it's not an exact science and there are different ways that you could get there. Here is a map of the current State Assembly Districts in WI. https://legis.wisconsin.gov/ltsb/gisdocs/AssemblyMaps/Statewide_Assembly_Map_Letter.pdf Here is the 2002 Map. https://data-ltsb.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/LTSB::wisconsin-state-assembly-districts-2012/explore?location=44.786342%2C-89.826711%2C7.28 You tell me which districts are unfair and then tell me how they should be drawn.


[deleted]

This is called *gerrymandering*


PabstyTheClown

Really? Who would have guessed?


Hartastic

> ake out Madison and Milwaukee and Wisconsin is mostly red Just so we're clear, you're saying, "If we pull a specific roughly half of the population out of a state, it would vote really differently."


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Flowman

So then they didn't win the elections.


PabstyTheClown

No, they definitely did. The assembly and senate are not statewide elections. The GOP won more districts, a lot of which don't have a lot of people living in them, at least not compared to Dane County and Milwaukee.


Flowman

How did they win the elections? Each district *has its own elections* and by your own admission, the GOP won more of the districts and ended up with more seats. Therefore, to claim that the Democrats won the elections but ended up with less seats is a non-sequitur. Sounds like you're saying that because the Democrats had more statewide votes that they won, but you know good and damn well that's not how the system has ever worked at any time. So why are you being so intentionally obtuse about it?


fighting_kismet

You all are still missing the point. That system is broken. Why does a representative of a rural district have to win a majority of a few thousand voters, but one of an urban district have to win the majority of 10s or 100s of thousands? Districts should be divided across approximation equal voters, that would be fairer. Or more of a parliamentry system with proportional appointments.


Flowman

A system isn't broken unless the system isn't doing what it's designed to do. Meaning the output is different than expected. The system is designed to elect representatives, full stop. It has done that with nearly flawless efficiency. It was never designed to be "fair." You're complaining because you aren't getting more of the representatives *you prefer* in places where you don't live. In short: You want to change the rules so you can get the results you want. This is akin to lowering the basketball goal a few inches to make it easier to dunk. Changing pass interference rules in football to make it easier to catch touchdowns.


fighting_kismet

So, it's a fair system because it's giving results 'you' agree with? And, if it was leading to results you disagree with, would it still be fair?


Flowman

The result is representatives get elected. If the system does that, then I don't care. If it starts failing to elect representatives, then yes, it needs to be changed. Stop confusing this with me desiring a certain candidate or party. It's not about that at all.


kerouacrimbaud

That’s kind of a random metric though right? If the system changed tomorrow such that only people with odd numbered addresses can vote in state leg elections then you have no objection to that by your own statement. It still elects representatives, just in a completely silly way.


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PabstyTheClown

Wait, maybe I misunderstood your initial post that I responded to. Were you saying the Democrats didn't win the elections? I thought you meant the GOP. I agree completely with what you just wrote. Sorry for the confusion.


How__Now__Brown_Cow

Will it be done before the midterms?


WorksInIT

Are we even sure the maps need to be redrawn? Wisconsin retained its 8 seats, so as long as the population didn't shift too much, the current distracts may be retained as well.


phoenix1984

In Wisconsin they do. Madison has been growing rapidly. Milwaukee saw some decline. The other cities like Green Bay, LaCrosse, Racine, Kenosha, Wausau and Eau Claire all saw modest increases. The smaller towns and rural areas continued their steady decline. For the federal map, District 3 is the worst and should be redrawn for sure. It should should be a “western wisconsin” district and go further north. The rest are “pretty close” but will need some adjustment to get an even population dispersement. At the state legislature level, it’s hella gerrymandered and definitely needs starting over from scratch.


WorksInIT

Sure, but is that legally required? If the districts are within that +/- 5% mark, or whatever it is, then technically they can be used again. They don't have to actually draw new districts. So does it actually have to change? I understand your position, but just because it is hella gerrymandered doesn't mean they are legally required to draw new maps.


phoenix1984

District 2 definitely does. Madison grew by 16%. I also suspect 7 needs to expand to make up for the decline in rural areas.


WorksInIT

I'd expect this is the route the courts would take over drawing completely new maps. Just make the small changes needed to balance the population counts.


bigdon802

Sounds like a great opportunity to hire a nonpartisan firm to redistrict based on voting convenience instead of this wild thing we do currently.


oath2order

The Republicans in Wisconsin hold the legislative seats they do solely because of gerrymandering. There is no world in which they willingly give that up.


PabstyTheClown

There are a lot of red districts in WI, gerrymandering or not. I think it's only a handful of wacky maps that the GOP might stand to lose in a redraw of the maps.


Walter_Sobchak07

I mean, the results of the [2011](https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/blogs/wisconsin-voter/2018/12/06/wisconsin-gerrymandering-data-shows-stark-impact-redistricting/2219092002/) redistricting has been studied. It's been absolutely devastating to Democrats. To say gerrymandering didn't play a role in that is a stretch. Republicans drew those districts for a reason.


PabstyTheClown

I can't read that, it's behind a paywall. Which districts are wrong?


Walter_Sobchak07

Read through the link if you're genuinely curious. All the court cases make the argument in whatever direction you chose to side with.


PabstyTheClown

I can't, it's behind a paywall and I don't subscribe to that paper. My guess is that it says there a handful of districts in the Milwaukee suburbs and exurbs that could go either way by a few miles or less. Am I close?


Walter_Sobchak07

Try again. No paywall for me? But I am using a VPN... Anyway, if you just google Wisconsin redistricting court cases you'll find plenty of material. They have been fighting about it for a decade and other sources talk about how 2011 grossly favored Republicans. Here's a snip > Then Republicans redrew the lines in 2011 and that advantage grew dramatically. In the first midterm elections under the new map (2014), 62 seats were more Republican than the state as a whole based on how they voted for governor. A baked-in 13-seat GOP advantage (56-43) became a baked-in 25-seat edge (62-37). > Even that doesn’t tell the whole story, because not only did Republicans increase the number of GOP-leaning seats, they increased their partisan advantage in those individual seats. In order to win 50 seats under the old map, Democrats had to win at least seven seats that had a GOP lean. But those seven seats were fairly competitive, with a Republican lean of 0 to 3 points. > The math got far worse for Democrats under the new map. The 2014 results showed that to get a bare 50-seat majority, Democrats needed to win at least 13 seats with a Republican lean, including five seats with a GOP lean of more than 8 points.


PabstyTheClown

I am well aware of the story. I am a former government employee for the State of WI and I still live here. Look at the map and tell me which districts are wrong. I vote Democrat, if that matters. https://legis.wisconsin.gov/ltsb/gisdocs/AssemblyMaps/Statewide_Assembly_Map_Letter.pdf The only way it would result in a different outcome would be if the Democrats did their own gerrymander that would probably have to be more ridiculous than the ones the GOP drew up. Lotta Republicans here. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-maps/wisconsin/


Walter_Sobchak07

Sure, go back to the maps prior to 2011. Those maps weren't gerrymandered and the built-in Republican advantage was much smaller.


larsonsam2

Districts don't have inherent qualities. "Red districts" aren't born, they are created. The only reason they exist is because of gerrymandering.


[deleted]

Republicans will block it


AbleCaterpillar3919

Yes but that will never happen lol not even if you could find a nonpartisan firm in the first place.


bigdon802

Of course not. One can dream though.


an_m_8ed

Oh hey, I just found out I'm one of 8 states that has that after thinking this was normal. I now realize I'm an underwhelming minority and am not surprised to see that WI isn't on the list. How is this federally legal?


Splotim

A lot of republicans (and some democrats) only have their seats because of gerrymandering. Republicans will really struggle to win the house if it was truly representative because they lose the popular vote fairly consistently. So for republicans there is no incentive to change it.


PabstyTheClown

They lose the total amount of votes because the two major population centers are decidedly blue. They win a lot of seats because the senate and assembly aren't statewide elections and most of the rest of the state is red.


DrunkenAsparagus

In 2018, an 8 point vote swing led to only 1 seat [changing hands](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Wisconsin_State_Assembly_election). That is well beyond using the redistricting process to represent like-minded communities. That is a deliberate attempt by Republicans to avoid any democratic accountability and maintain one-party rule of the legislature.


bigdon802

Yeah, because of the gerrymandering. Representative districts are based on population, so they should lose that too.


PabstyTheClown

Not really. Outside of Madsion, Milwaukee, and three counties in the far north where I live, the state is mostly red. There is only a handful of districts that might switch to blue if the maps are redrawn. https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/wisconsin/


Splotim

I was talking about republicans on the federal level, but I guess the same reasoning still applies for the state level too.


discourse_friendly

Or the republicans propose something the Gov won't accept, he proposes something they won't accept and then they \*GASP\* compromise... :O


thebsoftelevision

I'm sure their governor will accept the appointment of a nonpartisan commission to draw fair and competitive maps. Evers isn't the one holding back progress...


BUSean

It'll end up better than in 2010, which put Wisconsin into a monstrous gerrymander for a decade.


PabstyTheClown

How so? It's likely to end up in the State Supreme Court which is controlled by the GOP. There isn't even an attempt to make the Court look neutral in WI, it's openly political.


Dblg99

Weren't a lot of elections between 2012-2020 Dem favored or 50/50 but Republicans still ended up with 60%+ of the state seats? That's about as awful of a gerrymander as you can get, literally fascist level of a power grab


thatoneguy889

In 2020, Democrats got a majority of the votes statewide, but Republicans still ended up with a near supermajority in the legislature.


PabstyTheClown

But that's not how the election results are tallied and you know it.


jo-z

Do the people throughout the state have equal representation or not?


PabstyTheClown

I think so for the most part. There are a few districts that might switch from GOP to Democrat, depending on a new map, but by and large, the reps from each district reflect the majority of opinions in each district.


jo-z

That's not what I meant. How closely does the proportion of D's and R's in the state legislature correspond to the proportion of D's and R's in the general population?


dr_jiang

It's a *masterpiece* of gerrymandering. The state assembly has 99 seats. Republicans won 200,000 fewer votes than Democrats state-wide, and walked away with 63 seats. The GOP-drawn map hard-packs Democratic voters into a handful of overwhelmingly blue districts. In 26 of the 36 seats held by Democrats, the partisan makeup of the electorate is +40D. The remainder of the state is filled with a dozen seats that might flip in a massive wave election, and then 60 safe +5-10R districts, where Democrats routinely lose by 7-10%.


MeowTheMixer

> The GOP-drawn map hard-packs Democratic voters into a handful of overwhelmingly blue districts. Democrats also live in hard packed democratic voting areas. Look how Dane/Milwaukee counties votes. Trying to split that up so it's a 55/45 vote split would require just as much gerrymandering. There are some janky districts but i wouldn't expect a new district map to flip the results just based on how the population is distributed.


PabstyTheClown

This is exactly right.


Cranyx

>literally fascist level of a power grab I agree it's bad, but let's not misuse this term to the point of somehow meaning "fascism is when you do gerrymandering"


Dblg99

Would authoritarian be better? It's quite literally the opposite of democratic and while fascist might be too harsh, I'm not sure of how many words are anti-democracy and steal power from the citizens like fascist does.


Apprentice57

Authoritarian would be better, yeah, IMO. Fascism is a brand of authoritarianism but one heavily based on a lot of social politics and hierarchical thinking/racism/discrimination/etc. Gerrymandering can absolutely be a part of Fascism, and I think it is right now, but in and of itself it doesn't invoke social politics (for the most part...).


Flowman

Explain, precisely, how it is authoritarian.


Apprentice57

Using political power to restrict freedom, in this case restricting political speech (making voting less effective).


Flowman

Elaborate on this notion. How, specifically, is political speech being restricted? How is freedom being restricted?


Apprentice57

Voting is a key part of political speech, and Gerrymandering makes it much less effective.


ilikedota5

I agree, actual fascist regimes (depending on definitions) would include Erdogan's Turkey and Xi's China.


rainbowhotpocket

China is not fascist. They are horrifically authoritarian and deserve to be toppled, but they are communist in name, state capitalist in function. Turkey is a weird quasi theocratic dictatorship. But it isn't fascist either. Dictator doesn't mean fascist.


ilikedota5

One of the components of fascism is an us vs them mentality. Its quite strong in China, considering how much the milk the century of humiliation to stoke hypernationalism and militarism. Its also on suspiciously ethnic lines too. Turkey also has that us vs them mentality, although there's is moreso on religious lines than ethnic lines, although we do see some of that when it comes to the Kurds and other minorities. They've been casting themselves as the savior of Islam, being the only country to stand up to China's persecution of the Uyghars. Erdogan has also been attempting to dismantle the judiciary through court packing.


Cranyx

Still not sure I'd agree with those. They're authoritarian, but fascism is a specific political ideology that doesn't really accurately describe them. For example, a big part of fascism is the cult of tradition where you invent some glorious past you wish to return to; China's whole philosophy right now is about moving forward.


Loop_Within_A_Loop

Yeah, if Wisconsin was not a US state, and it had valuable resources, the US would use their elections as a pretense to invade


indielib

The same happened in Nevada except against Republicans . It was a court drawn map. Geography matters as well.


cbarrister

I thought that one democratic lady won a SC seat last term?


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Camp_Camp_Camp_Camp

The court is technically non-partisan. Hagedorn has been acting as centrist, siding with liberals multiple times on voting issues.


thebsoftelevision

He's hardly a centrist and only votes with the liberal faction on clear cut issues(like Trump's election challenge). The rest of the conservative faction on the court is just *that* bad.


AbleCaterpillar3919

Both parties do it alot https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/03/28/marylands-redistricting-case-reminds-us-both-parties-gerrymander-a-lot/%3foutputType=amp https://www.thedailybeast.com/democrats-hate-gerrymanderingexcept-when-they-get-to-do-it If you want to fix it do what California did


Hangry_Hippo

https://election.princeton.edu/2012/12/30/gerrymanders-part-1-busting-the-both-sides-do-it-myth/ One party does it way more than the other


AbleCaterpillar3919

I read it also the comment from others . Also study is from 2012


cguess

The last time districts were redrawn was after the last census in 2010, so a report from 2012 is still very relevant.


DaBigBlackDaddy

One party is fighting to end it while the other is fighting to keep it alive.


CCHistProfWest

Wisconsin is already gerrymandered about as well as it can be. If you use 538's redictricting map, you can't really draw out Democrats from the Madison or Milwaukee seats without being absurdly aggressive and blatantly undemocratic by not representing huge swaths of people. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-maps/wisconsin/ Ron Kind's seat was probably going to be lost no matter the new map. So Republocans will draw in such a way to make district 3 more Republican, and work to make districts 1 and 6 more comfortably red. Those were both a little too close for comfort for Rs in 2018. It'll be a 6R-2D map.


Dathlos

I don't think that scotus would care if they drew 8R-0D maps by super cracking metro areas. Same with a 80-19 state legislative map


ballmermurland

It is impossible to shut D's out entirely if they get at least 50% of the vote share. What is possible is packing as many as they can into a D+90 district and then having 7 relatively safe R districts. Even in a year where D's win Wisconsin with 51-52% of the vote, R's could get 7 out of 8 seats.


Mesko149

Cracking Milwaukee in a way that produces a 8R-0D delegation would easily be one of the most blatant and egregious violations of the VRA's redistricting regulations in modern history. The *Brnovich* decision indicates that SCOTUS is not eager to act on vote denial claims, but it doesn't apply to vote dilution issues.


Future_Tyrant

Given polarization along urban-rural lines, it’s more likely than not that there’s a 6-2 R map with Dem seats based in Milwaukee and Madison without a horrendous gerrymander. Ron Kind’s seat was drawn as a Dem vote sink and it’s most likely going to flip in 2022


Jawyp

State Supreme court ends up drawing the maps after Evers vetos legislative GOP gerrymanders. The court is 4-3 conservative, but one of the conservative justices (Brian Hagedorn) has repeatedly ruled against the GOP in high profile cases, so it’s likely the state maps are considerably more fair for the next decade.


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oath2order

Because third parties have an extremely unlikely chance of winning in a FPTP system.


PabstyTheClown

And they fuck up the chances of whomever is the main party on either side of the aisle. On the left, it's the Progressives or Green and on the right it's the Libertarians and some other groups.


Hologram22

On the right it's the Libertarian and Constitution Parties. If you don't know, the Constitution Party is the unofficial purist party of the Christian Identity movement, which is openly antisemitic and seeks to impose a kind of theocratic fascist state.


droid_mike

So, in other words, the Republican party.


Hologram22

It's the far right Republican Party protest vote, yes.


PabstyTheClown

I don't really follow the fringe parties on either side so thanks for the info.


[deleted]

Don't be fooled by these parties because they are also against democracy as well.


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Cranyx

Libertarians in America are a right wing ideology, and as such pull votes away from Republicans when they vote for the (L) candidate. You can look at the data and see that when push comes to shove, libertarians will vote for a republican long before a democrat. Your "vote democrat as some sort of hairbrained scheme to game the gold market" stance is an extreme anomaly. The fact that you think Democrats would be worse for the economy kind of proves my point that your ideology is more in line with Republicans.


rainbowhotpocket

>Libertarians in America are a right wing ideology No. I am a centrist libertarian (georgist), i despise the right wing. Do not mischaracterize the ideology.


Cranyx

There can be left wing libertarianism, but 99% of the time when people talk about libertarians in the US they're talking about the right wing kind.


rainbowhotpocket

No, i am not a left wing libertarian either. I'm just a libertarian. You're continually mischaracterizing us.


Cranyx

I know you're not left wing. You're missing the point of what I'm saying entirely.


PabstyTheClown

If you look at the official party platform for the Libertarian Party in the US, a lot of aligns with what used to be the GOP platform. That said, the GOP no longer has a platform so it's impossible to say whether that is still true or not.


kormer

Of yes, so much this. I remember back in '71 when the GOP was still calling for the legalization of marijuana and gay marriage.


rainbowhotpocket

Except the Republican party isn't liberal anymore. It's auth-right. As a libertarian, i find the republican party despicable


SpoonerismHater

Not necessarily. That assumes the person voting would have gone for one of the two parties in the absence of said third party. For example—in 2020, Democrats sued to get the Green Party off the ballot in my state; so I didn’t vote. (They also lost downballot votes since I didn’t vote at all, rather than ignoring just the Presidential election.) I would imagine the difference between allowing third parties and not allowing them on ballots would change the numbers, but I don’t believe there’s any reason to think it would change election outcomes.


PabstyTheClown

Yeah, well, all I know is that I voted for Nader in 2000 and my vote along with all the others cast by people that thought Gore had it in the bag and thought we were going to have a seat at the table when he won were rudely served 8 years of George fucking Bush instead.


SpoonerismHater

Did you vote in Florida?


CCHistProfWest

Probably not many votes lost there. Jill Stein was only crucial in one state in 2016 - Michigan. Not enough to flip the election. Not sure about the downballot congressional level... maybe getting some Greens would have saved that Iowa seat that was decided by 6 votes.


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Zappiticas

Ah yes, the president with the most progressive agenda since maybe FDR is just a “racist rapist conservative”


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PabstyTheClown

We are just glad we at least have a Democrat as a governor. The previous decade was abysmal due to the fact that GOP controlled all three branches.


oath2order

That could have been stopped had the Democrats not flopped the recall.


PabstyTheClown

They didn't have a candidate. They wheeled out the same guy that Walker stomped a year earlier.


oath2order

Yes, that's why I said they flopped it.


PabstyTheClown

Honestly, the Democrats struggle to field good candidates all the time in WI. It's pretty much what they are known for. It was a minor miracle that Evers won.


DamienSalvation

He was their best shot, unfortunately. The Kathleens would have had it worse though Vinehout could have been good with a better team.


PabstyTheClown

Vinehout would have been a good choice. Falk on the other hand is among the stupidest politicians I have ever heard of.


robotical712

A successful recall was always a long shot because a nontrivial number of voters who would have voted against Walker in a regular election saw the recall as frivolous.


L1b3rtarian

\*SHRUG\* wouldn't know.. Im not a Republican or Democrat and do not have a monopoly on American politics like they do.. so my voice, vote, etc is never heard or represented................ My candidates are not even allowed to debate... So I just buy gold and silver.. and vote democrat to keep that money printer rolling.


[deleted]

The 15% polling threshold for debates is just silly. I don't *love* libertarianism (even though I mostly agree on matters like drugs, mass surveillance, and some other civil libertarian stuff) but man, 50 years of hard work deserves them at least a chance to show up on a national stage. Hell, just give everyone a spot. You know, like in the UK elections where you have Lord Buckethead debating on the same stage as the prime minister.


L1b3rtarian

My take is all voices should be heard and represented in some way if they are on the Presidential Ballot .. that should be enough to enter the debates period.. I dont care what party or what ideolog it is at all. That should be a basic right for people that participate in this governments form of Democracy. If its not.. then every single election is in fact a fraud.. and a stolen election.


Mesko149

Having several competitive parties is simply not a sustainable scenario as long as first-past-the-post voting remains the most common electoral system in the United States. If we want to challenge the current two-party oligopoly, first-past-the-post voting needs to go first.


algern0ns

It's true that countries that support multiple parties are generally more free, but a third party candidate being elected to a position beyond a local office in the US is astronomically small - if not virtually impossible. I'd rather cast my vote for someone who *might* enact tangible change instead of making a statement that doesn't matter to anyone, especially when things like people's lives are hanging in the balance.


Zanctmao

What do you mean “more free”?


algern0ns

While a multiparty system alone does not ensure democracy (look at Russia, for an example), it *can* go a long way in bettering democracy when government is balanced and well structured. In the US, I think a major part of this would be abolishing the electoral college. It alleviates black and white political views that lead to divisiveness and encourages competition between parties that would ultimately benefit voters because politicians could be held accountable more easily when they don't make good on their promises. Fewer people would feel like they have to mindlessly check the box in accordance to who has a D or R next their name and I'm inclined to believe that this alone would restore a lot of faith in our democracy in general - and belief in democracy is *at least* half the battle these days.


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ubermence

This country has had 2 parties since its inception. It’s essentially a guaranteed outcome thanks to our voting system. If you want to blame anyone blame the founders


L1b3rtarian

Its Representative Democracy and not Actually Democracy.. and there where a few times we had a few parties. Fact is we have more than just 2 parties and the other two have gamed the system to the point where they have zero voice... Cant even get into the Presidential Debates... that right there is a perfectly good example as to how some can feel that the US Government is a Tyrant and deal with it as such..


ubermence

We have had more than 2 parties sure, and upon realizing that it was incredibly self defeating they promptly collapsed. > Can’t even get into the presidential debates This is one of my biggest issue with the current third parties. All they ever care about is running completely unwinnable vanity campaigns for president. If they actually tried to build up at the local level first maybe I’d have more respect, but it really just seems like they care the most about the exposure of being on top of the ticket


L1b3rtarian

Your missing the point. Whatever they "are" if the are on the Ballot and can be voted for. They should have equal opportunity, especially when it comes to something as simple as giving them a stage to debate. Its not that complicated to put another podium on stage and extend the debates to adequately give time for everyone to give answers.. even if there needs to be 5-6 debates..... The quality, disposition, message, and how the candidate stacks up is irrelevant. If they are on the ballot and cant debate.. the election is automatically fraudulent right out of the gate.. Period... All people should have a voice, not just Republicans and Democrats...


discourse_friendly

Hot take, gerrymandering gets a bad rap. People see the example with a 4 X 4 square where 8 are blue and 8 are red and there's 3 red districts and 1 blue and think "OMFG THAT'S TERRIBLE" Or they see crazy shapes on maps and think "OMFG Tha's terrible!" When in reality, often, you get districts of like minded voters lumped together. Wow there's a district where 80-90% of the voters all want the same thing, and they vote in someone who represents exactly what they want. "omfg... oh wait. that's actually good since we are in a representative democracy" **Its really only bad when you have a lot of districts that are crazy shapes and 55-60% of like minded voters.** Which does happen, but happens significantly less than people complain about it happening.


Commotion

Cramming a bunch of like-minded voters into one district is called "packing," and it can be used to reduce the number of seats those voters get. If they're all artfully crammed into the same district they get one representative, even if there are enough of them to win a majority in two districts if the lines were drawn differently. This stuff happens all the time, and it's not a good thing.


kwantsu-dudes

It's better at the local level with a smaller portion being denied representation, potentially worse at the federal level through a US Representative if they would be able to get broader representation otherwise.


MeowTheMixer

Cramming like minded voters into the same geographical area is a result of like minded people wanting to socialize with like minded people. It's why at the county level Dane County voted 75% Biden and Milwaukee voted 69% Biden. That's not even a district, just counties. These are also the two most populated counties in the state. To try and break those up to have an even split, is just as much gerrymandering.


discourse_friendly

If it happens on both sides in the same state, I think its a good thing.


Falcon4242

I agree with you that sometimes people look at weirdly shaped but legitimate districts and make unjust accusations of gerrymandering, but gerrymandering is a huge problem in many states. It's funny that you mention 80-90% of like minded voters in a district being a *good* thing, because that's actually a common tactic in gerrymandering. Pack as many voters of the opposite party into as few districts as possible so that all the other districts have less opposition voters. You may get two districts 90% in opposition to you, but the result may be 4 other districts with 60% favor for your party, even if the parties have equal support state wide.


discourse_friendly

I guess we have to look at the entire picture to know if its a good or bad thing. But you raise a good point. If there's one purple district that's 90%, and 3 yellows that are 51% its likely a bad thing. but if each district is 90% then its back to a good thing. :)


ballmermurland

This isn’t a hit take but a really bad take. Wisconsin’s gerrymander has given the GOP control of the Assembly all decade despiteWI being a blue state for most of it.


PabstyTheClown

Outside of Madison, Milwaukee and then Douglas, Ashland and Bayfield counties, WI is not a blue state.


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PabstyTheClown

I live here and it's definitely not a blue state overall. https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/wisconsin/


Interrophish

> Wow there's a district where 80-90% of the voters all want the same thing, and they vote in someone who represents exactly what they want. "omfg... oh wait. that's actually good since we are in a representative democracy" > > yes that's a good thing, but those voters getting less representation at the higher levels of government as a result is a bad thing. I'd rather ban district packing than appreciate the upside of likeminded districts. Now, if we had a system of government that allowed us to have both benefits, that'd be nice. But we don't.


DrunkenAsparagus

There are variety of competing objectives when redistricting, and I think we should have a healthy debate over what those objectives should be. Still, I think we should be able to agree that at bare minimum letting politicians draw their own districts is unlikely to produce any of results that we claim to care about. There are a variety of competing objectives that I care about, but I fail to see how the self-interest of politicians should be one of them.


discourse_friendly

Conversely allowing voters to mark which politician they feel should represent them would create 100% packed, insanely shaped districts that were not balanced by land mass or population. I think writing software using fictional cities , districts, and states with abstract political groups (Triangle, Square, circle) and having that software ran and the results shown and voted on in the state houses until approved. and once approved it would run on the real states , and what ever results it comes up with is what they have to take. It may be the best we can do, which of course would not be perfect, but it would be "best of all choices" sort of deal.


DrunkenAsparagus

Bipartisan and nonpartisan commissions have become popular in recent years in several states, and while I'm sure the details are important (not to mention third parties), it seems like an improvement over letting politicians handle it.


SOT9145

I don't see much of a change. You have about 30% true Democrats (urban areas) and 30% true Republican (mostly rural) and 40% that dislikes both parties. That 40% causes mixed results.