Voting Districts

[Perianne]

How should voting district lines be drawn?

Florida's 20th congressional district is an electoral district for the U.S. Congress, located in southeast Florida. The district includes most of the majority-black precincts in and around Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.

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This district ensures a black Representative, who is presently Alcee Hastings.


Or this one, designed to get an Hispanic Representative, who is presently Luis Gutiérrez

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida%27s_20th_congressional_district
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%27s_4th_congressional_district


There has to be some sensible way to do this.

[Common]

Theyve been battling about florida voting districts ever since ive been here. Depending on whether its a liberal judge or conservative one is the decision you get.

Florida districts have been written and re written several times and some have shot down by the courts, recently the last one turned down was re instated by an appeals court. I dont know whats happened with it after that

[Green Arrow]

A state's voting districts are drawn by the party that controls the state legislature. It's a large part of how the GOP has managed to get such a strong hold on the House, because they focused (smartly) on winning state-level races while Democrats largely ignored state-level races. Once they won, they (like the Democrats did before them) redrew the voting districts, and that's how they'll stay for a ten-year period.

Both sides do it to give themselves artificial advantages, it's a huge part of why incumbents are so untouchable. It's not fair, it's not democratic, and it's not "the will of the people." The best solution would be to either have all the districts decided by a nonpartisan commission or (as Standing Wolf suggested) have a computer draw the districts based solely on the number of adults in a given area.

[MisterVeritis]

A state's voting districts are drawn by the party that controls the state legislature. It's a large part of how the GOP has managed to get such a strong hold on the House, because they focused (smartly) on winning state-level races while Democrats largely ignored state-level races. Once they won, they (like the Democrats did before them) redrew the voting districts, and that's how they'll stay for a ten-year period.

Both sides do it to give themselves artificial advantages, it's a huge part of why incumbents are so untouchable. It's not fair, it's not democratic, and it's not "the will of the people." The best solution would be to either have all the districts decided by a nonpartisan commission or (as @Standing Wolf (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=1791) suggested) have a computer draw the districts based solely on the number of adults in a given area.
Great. Let's do that after the next census.