Balkinization: We just never want to connect the dots between the Constitution and the threats to our national survival

Comments:

As noted, there are multiple constitutional provisions that give Congress power to regulate state elections in various respects. The Supreme Court also has power to practice judicial review -- e.g., it was asked to intervene in a 26th Amendment proceeding that arose from Texas. Other nations have other mechanisms, which they at times also have a lack of will to apply well. Again, at the moment, I question how much writ large how "stupid" we are as compared to Brexit England.

The op-ed flags possible problems that can be addressed with the will. Trump was impeached for wrongful interference (repeat performance) in an election and of congressional oversight. We saw how that went. We saw how the Mueller Investigation went, including the Attorney General's interference and obstruction. Cf. Jill Wine-Banks' book "Watergate Girl," which provides another path.

Rick Hasen's voting rights amendment very well might be a good idea. Hasen by the way for various reasons opposes a campaign finance amendment. But, there needs to be a will. As chaos agents are in place in the White House and the Senate, with strong opposition though not enough (some mildly bothered by "blue skying"), we might reach a moment where change is possible.

Major change has occurred over the years. Let us not be satisfied with name changes on a bridge. John Lewis:

"Democracy is not a state,” Lewis wrote. “It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.”

"Parchment barriers" only go so far there.

# posted by

Joe : 6:19 PM

Funny one, really funny. Just some points here:

First, fear Russia indeed, not less, Iran and China, the latter, are greatly desperate, to see Trump falling next election. And they have, mighty capabilities in this regards.

Second, such cyber attacks, are more meant to manipulate public opinion( like in 2016 ) over counting ballots and alike. Like digging and fishing dirty things on candidates ( like on Clinton in 2016) or, opening fake account in social media and alike.

Third, the world indeed watch. Yet, there are greater problems than elections. The image of the US, has been severely eroded in the world, since the election of Trump ( and even before it) and the death of George Floyd, has really affected badly the US, all over the world.

Finally, courts in the US, are yet, reliable in this regard. If petitioned, they can solve controversies, and state bodies and organs and the voter, would comply with it. That's what counts mainly. Independent courts.

Thanks

# posted by

el roam : 6:56 PM

Just here in Wikipedia:

"Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections"

Here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections

# posted by

el roam : 7:14 PM

I'm not sure what the solution is here. If elections were nationalized, I have little doubt that the GOP control of all 3 branches in 2017-8 would have resulted in a much less democratic system to operate in 2020. Bad faith operation of any system will destroy it; as the last thread demonstrated, that's the actual goal of Trump and the Rs.

# posted by

Mark Field : 9:16 PM

Our institutions have shown how weak they are in the face of a challenge from an undisciplined, incompetent President with no party behind him.

It's pretty clear that the only remaining institutional barriers to dictatorship are the existence of Presidential term limits and state control of the electoral process.

Giving either of those up would seem to be a fairly insane move if you want to preserve democracy.

# posted by

Who me? : 11:18 PM

Until the 1970s Australia had much the same problems with election administration as the US, although the focus was more gerrymandering and malapportionment than voter suppression. One famous electoral district in the state of Queensland had boundaries that ran along either bank of a river for 40 miles so that an inland parcel of Aboriginal voters could be included in a Labor coastal electorate rather than the Country Party electorate where it was located.

All states and the federation now have independent, nonpartisan (not bipartisan) electoral commissions that draw the boundaries, subject to judicial review. Any voter has standing to approach the courts fr review on fairness grounds.

The last time any redistricting was controversial was in 1978 when Senator Reg (The Toecutter) Withers was found to have improperly influenced the electoral commission. Withers was dismissed from the cabinet and his post as leader of the government in the senate. His nickname referred to his methods of ensuring that his caucus voted the way he wanted.

# posted by

Alan : 6:22 AM

"Independent" commissions suffer from 2 flaws: (1) partisan appointments to the commissions; and (2) partisan judicial review. And, of course, administrative bad faith combined with oversight failure can wreck any system.

# posted by

Mark Field : 9:12 AM

Time for a compromise.

(1) Reregister all voters requiring documentation of identity, location and citizenship. Give all legal voters a voting number and card. Place information in federal database. Feds pay 100%.

(2) Federal elections take place in person or by requested absentee ballot from a reregistered voter. Justice can oversee availability if voting locations.

(3) Delivery of ballots by third parties is a federal crime.

(4) Provisional ballots not matched to the federal database are not counted for federal elections.

No fraud and easy voting.

Will a single Democrat here support this or a similar compromise?

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:47 AM

(1) partisan appointments to the commissions; and (2) partisan judicial review

No electoral commission member, federal or state has ever faced allegations of partisan misconduct.

The electoral commissioner, and his deputy in Western Australia, resigned in 2013 after the High Court found that missing ballots i he election of senators for Western Australia could have been effected by missing votes. The ballots in question literally fell off the back of a truck. Because of careful tracking and auditing it was known exactly how many ballots were missing.

No redistricting has drawn credible allegations of gerrymandering since the nonpartisan commission model was adopted.

That is broadly the experience in other countries that use independent commissions.

# posted by

Alan : 9:57 AM

Your experience is not likely to work the same way in the US. Here, the R party is unwilling to abide by democratic norms. It makes voting rights a partisan issue. It screams about non-existent "voter fraud". It uses gerrymandering as a common tactic. It screams that people shouldn't be able to vote by mail (in the midst of a pandemic, no less). It designs election systems to discriminate against Dem voters.

The basic problem is that the Rs have given up trying to win a majority of the votes, so their partisan interest is to prevent a majority from governing. They reject the fundamental premise of democracy. That means that, regardless of norms or even laws, they attempt to hold power for minority rule.

You may say that the courts will intervene. I assume you're familiar with Bush v Gore, so you shouldn't have faith in US courts these days. But the problem has only gotten worse since then as the judiciary has been constructed by R governments to adopt the same standards of voter suppression as the party itself. We can no longer trust the judiciary to protect democratic norms or even laws.

# posted by

Mark Field : 10:26 AM

Mark Field, what counts finally, is to comply with the ruling. All over the world, parties feel that courts haven't served justice (when it does touch them). What? some Republicans, even suggested recently to impeach Justice Roberts( yes, you read well). But, not as in Africa or Venezuela, one wouldn't dismantle the court delivering the ruling, or, hurt the judges or whatever. So far, compliance is almost total.And the same for Florida 2000.

Thanks

# posted by

el roam : 10:39 AM

Mark Field,

Here for example, titled:

"Conservatives blast Roberts as turncoat"

"In 5-4 decisions on federal rules and citizenship question, chief justice joins court liberals and frustrates the right."

Here:

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/27/conservatives-blast-roberts-1386124

Or, more recently:

"GOP lawmakers tear into John Roberts over DACA ruling"

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/18/politics/republican-criticism-john-roberts-daca-supreme-court/index.html

# posted by

el roam : 10:59 AM

Mark, we do have a much less politicised judiciary. Australian judges are typically not identified by party and 2 people appointed to the high court by one party were then promoted to chief justice by the other party. You're not going to get anywhere with that barring constitutional amendment.

However, purely statutory rights to judicial review on the grounds of fairness have been massively successful in transforming a nation of outrageous gerrymanderers into electoral puritans.

# posted by

Alan : 11:13 AM

The Supreme Court here has rejected Constitutional challenges to gerrymandering. Federal laws to prevent it are doubtful because, as the OP points out, the US system mostly leaves elections to the states. Statutory changes at the state level might work -- the Court is so partisan that one can't be sure -- but of course making statutory changes requires winning elections, and the whole point of gerrymandering (and other suppression tactics) is to prevent the majority from actually winning.

# posted by

Mark Field : 11:44 AM

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# posted by

Joe : 12:09 PM

The problem here is that Democrats, confronted with the fact that their overwhelming domination of dense urban areas results in their voters being inefficiently distributed in a single member, first past the post system, have tendentiously redefined 'gerrymandering' to mean "any deviation from the outcome proportional representation would dictate."

While Republicans continue to use the preexisting definition, drawing district lines to achieve a predetermined outcome.

So, when the topic comes up, we're not even talking about the same thing, and the 'cure' for "gerrymandering" as each side understands it is to COMMIT gerrymandering as the other side understands it.

That's not a recipe for compromise, and no wonder the Court decided to stay out of it.

# posted by

Brett : 12:10 PM

"While Republicans continue to use the preexisting definition, drawing district lines to achieve a predetermined outcome."

This is, of course, false. From the Oxford dictionary: "the manipulation of an electoral constituency's boundaries so as to favor one party or class."

A "predetermined outcome" might be "a fair, majoritarian outcome" or "an outcome that provides each party with roughly its proportional share of the vote". Nothing wrong with those "predetermined outcomes". The R scheme, in contrast, is to use allegedly neutral language to achieve an outcome which favors their party. And also to accuse the Dems of the very thing the Rs themselves are guilty of.

# posted by

Mark Field : 12:33 PM

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# posted by

Joe : 12:42 PM

While Republicans continue to use the preexisting definition, drawing district lines to achieve a predetermined outcome.

And by that definition, Republicans in several states engaged in gerrymandering after the 2010 census. Republicans purposely concentrated Democratic voters in "vote sinks," which vote overwhelmingly Democratic, while creating the maximum possible number of safe Republican districts. The explicit purpose was to create Republican legislative majorities which could survive a "wave" election like 2018.

# posted by

Jestak : 12:47 PM

Will a single Democrat here support this or a similar compromise?

What do you see as the concessions that your side is making in this "compromise," Bart?

# posted by

Jestak : 12:56 PM

Bart: No fraud and easy voting

What part of the compromise involved easy voting?

# posted by

just_looking : 12:59 PM

"And by that definition, Republicans in several states engaged in gerrymandering after the 2010 census."

Absolutely, while Democrats in several other states engaged in it.

But the Democrats use a definition of "gerrymandering" that declares their own efforts in that area to be innocent, while drawing district lines totally objectively by computer, without any reference to voting patterns at all, to be gerrymandering.

If you need to look at data on how people vote, to draw the lines, you're engaged in gerrymandering. That's the bottom line. You simply don't need that information except to gerrymander.

# posted by

Brett : 1:03 PM

The Australia situation, involving a place with a fraction of our population and various other differences, compared to the United States, shows that parchment barriers, including structural ones, only go so far w/o good faith application. I gather examples can be found to apply this principle to Australia and other places, but I will leave that to others. I appreciate the cross-nation data.

Mark answered the latest on gerrymandering. I rather no drag that out since the OP didn't really focus on that. It covers much more ground. I note this:

And, of course, only Congress can cure this problem because the U.S., unlike roughly half the states, does not allow genuine "popular sovereignty" by which "we the People" could wrest control of our destiny away from so-called "representatives" through initiatives and referenda (such as the one in Florida restoring voting rights to felons, a decision that the GOP-dominated Florida legislature is doing its utmost to negate via requiring the equivalent of a poll tax).

Note that the Constitution has a specific ban on poll taxes and the 14A Equal Protection Clause was also applied to address them. The specific mechanism used in Florida also has due process problems since just what a person owns is unclear. Each state as well as the federal government bans violations of due process of law.

The value of initiatives and referenda to me is mixed though I accept them to some degree. Experience has shown that they are repeatedly not a true reflection of what "We the People" believe, the efforts often led by special interests using confusion and only a fraction of the people vote on them. I doubt many voters in my own state fully understand some of the rather complex ballot measures. Representative government to me is generally a good a way to formulate policy and constitutional provisions.

The Madisonian argument that a national legislature provides the best bet has some merit. One person supports "existence of Presidential term limits and state control of the electoral process." Given the power of the president, I'm okay with a two term limit. As to state control, that's a mixed bag. We saw how partisan control of electoral processes worked in 2000. History shows some federal regulation here was a good idea. Voting Rights Act of 1964 etc.

For a country this size, a mixed federal/state election system makes sense. We would be left with determining just what federal rules and regulations (constitutional and statutory) are appropriate. Independent agencies are not perfect, but of the choices available, they might be the best bet given the self-interest of elected officials. We have seen what happens when partisan secretaries of state etc. run elections.

# posted by

Joe : 1:05 PM

Absolutely, while Democrats in several other states engaged in it.

Which states are the Democratic equivalents to Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin, etc? In other words, where are the states which are closely divided or lean narrowly Republican, but which have large Democratic majorities in their state legislatures due to gerrymandering?

# posted by

Jestak : 1:09 PM

"Which states are the Democratic equivalents to Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin, etc? In other words, where are the states which are closely divided or lean narrowly Republican, but which have large Democratic majorities in their state legislatures due to gerrymandering?"

This isn't really an issue, even if there are some examples (e.g., MD). The Dem position is that gerrymandering should be abolished. They know this will hurt their party in some locations. The R position is that nothing can or should be done about gerrymandering (or, per Brett above) that they aren't doing the gerrymandering that they're doing.

# posted by

Mark Field : 1:59 PM

Just looking:

Easy voting = Adequate polling places and verified mail voting.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 2:06 PM

Arizona, Louisiana, California. See figure 4.

# posted by

Brett : 2:11 PM

Easy voting = Adequate polling places and verified mail voting.

Not sure why this is a "compromise."

I mean, there are no good grounds for opposing these things, so you can hardly say you're giving up something you legitimately have.

If you steal $10,000 it's no "compromise" to offer to give back $5000 to avoid prosecution.

# posted by

byomtov : 3:37 PM

But the Democrats use a definition of "gerrymandering" that declares their own efforts in that area to be innocent, while drawing district lines totally objectively by computer, without any reference to voting patterns at all, to be gerrymandering.

This is just silly, Brett.

The computer doesn't just draw districts according to some ultimate wisdom only it possesses. It has to be given criteria, an objective function, a weighting of considerations, call it what you will.

Once you do that it doesn't matter if you let a computer to the grunt work. And a party in power is going to try hard to set those rules to its advantage, unless some standard is agreed to ahead of time.

# posted by

byomtov : 3:44 PM

"The computer doesn't just draw districts according to some ultimate wisdom only it possesses. It has to be given criteria, an objective function, a weighting of considerations, call it what you will."

In the case of my link, the only criteria were compactness and uniform population. You have some complaint about those criteria? Neither of them is beneficial enough to Democrats, maybe?

# posted by

Brett : 3:53 PM

The original post: "....highly partisan state secretaries of state the ability to manipulate elections in favor of their own party..."

There's the money quote right there. It never was any good, and the computer age only further enables the fraud.

Thanks ever so much, Framers.

# posted by

Fred Raymond : 4:01 PM

Bymotov:

Facially, the Dems do not give up a thing in my compromise. My compromise trades what Democrats demand (more voting places and access to mail in ballots) in exchange for measures with teeth to prevent something Democrats claim does not exist (voting fraud).

In reality, you and I know my compromise massively harms Democrats. Nearly all legal voters have ample ability to vote and Democrats could lose millions of votes if vote harvesting, non-citizen voting and provisional double voting is eliminated.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 4:05 PM

Bart: Easy voting = Adequate polling places and verified mail voting.

Relative to the status quo, what is "adequate polling places"? Verified mail voting is an improvement in the seventeen states that require an excuse for absentee voting, but a step back in the five states that automatically mail out ballots and the likely trend in more states doing so.

# posted by

just_looking : 4:49 PM

Bart: My compromise trades what Democrats demand (more voting places and access to mail in ballots) in exchange for measures with teeth to prevent something Democrats claim does not exist (voting fraud).

Democrats believe those measures suppress legal voting.

# posted by

just_looking : 4:53 PM

You have some complaint about those criteria? Neither of them is beneficial enough to Democrats, maybe?

No. they are not, which is to say they ignore the reasonable objective of equitable representation. I know you do love some geography, but I see no reason compactness should trump all other considerations, though I do understand why you love it - at bottom you don't think city-dwellers ought to count as much as hardy, rural, "real American" citizens.

Facially, the Dems do not give up a thing in my compromise.

Of course they do. Stop the trolling. The obvious impact of your proposal is to make it harderfor largely Democratic voters to register.

Nearly all legal voters have ample ability to vote and Democrats could lose millions of votes if vote harvesting, non-citizen voting and provisional double voting is eliminated.

You are simply lying, Bart. None of what you say is true. It's scummy and disgusting. You are making serious allegations for which there is no evidence, displaying all the integrity of your liar-champion Trump. Go back to talking about how trivial Covid is.

# posted by

byomtov : 4:56 PM

In Bart's lame "offer" (who died an made him the spokesman for the Republicans?) -- what would constitute his "proof"? I'm guessing it would be a lot more onerous than what is allowed currently. (I last registered using a driver's license. I didn't have to prove I was a citizen. Note: this is pretty standard around the country, and thus, if aliens were trying to vote, they could presumably register. Yet they don't, as every investigation has shown.)

I don't think I'd bother negotiating with someone who thinks he "knows" things for which he has zero evidence. It's pointless to humor paranoia -- the paranoia simply doubles down, since it's not based on anything objective.

And then, of course, there's the can of worms required by having separate registrations for federal and state and local elections. Does anyone imagine it would actually be "easy" for everyone to have to go and re-register, and have to maintain yet another set of documents to vote? Documents which you would only use every two years?

# posted by

C2H5OH : 5:13 PM

Thanks ever so much, Framers.

Their choices overall were basically reasonable at the time. Hundreds of years passed since then. Some things changed. Not quite their fault more didn't. Even the trouble amending might surprise them. The Articles of Confederation was even harder to amend. They basically replaced the thing, stripping the AOC for a few parts.

Needing Rhode Island, a unanimous rule in place, to even get a mild financial amendment passed was labeled as simply stupid in the Federalist Papers. Some of the remaining things at this point are as stupid. We should do something about it, though it was easier to do then for various reasons.

# posted by

Joe : 5:30 PM

Brett, I am not sure if your link to the Chen-Cottrell paper was intended as a response to me--I made a point about state legislature districting, and Chen-Cottrell is about Congressional districts.

I would like to briefly address the Chen-Cottrell study, since it gets waved around in debates about redistricting and gerrymandering quite a lot--Republicans like it because it concludes that the net effect of partisan gerrymandering on the party balance in the US House is close to zero.

Briefly, what Chen and Cottrell do is 1) they use an algorithm to create what are supposed to be non-partisan districts. 2) They then do a simulation to estimate, based on past presidential election voting, how likely each of these hypothetical districts would be to elect a Republican, and how many Republicans each state would then be expected to elect to Congress. This latter estimate is, of course, an interval estimate, not a point estimate. 3) They compare the number of Republicans predicted in their model to the number of Republicans actually elected (I believe in 2012).

That's where the results in the chart Brett refers to come from. States where the actual number of elected Republicans are outside the estimate they come up with are considered to be cases where there was some sort of partisan gerrymandering.

The Chen-Cottrell paper is hardly the last word on this issue; there have been a number of critiques of their methodology and analysis since the paper came out. Election Law Blog has several posts addressing the paper and several of the responses to it.

While I am not going to go into those technical criticisms, I would like to make a couple of brief points about two of the states Brett explicitly refers to.

Louisiana--redistricting in Louisiana was controlled by Republicans after the 2010 Census, and the Chen-Cottrell analysis fails to account for the Voting Rights Act's requirement that they have a black-majority district.

Arizona--districts were drawn by an independent commission, which produced a map with 3 very competitive swing districts. Chen and Cottrell's analysis treated a 5-4 Democratic majority in the state House delegation as "unlikely," when it in fact was a reasonable potential outcome.

A final general point about Chen-Cottrell, one which they at least tacitly acknowledge in their paper, is this: The correct interpretation when they find that a state's actual election outcome is "outside the simulated distribution" is merely that the state in question did not use the Chen-Cottrell algorithm to draw their district boundaries. Nothing more.

# posted by

Jestak : 5:32 PM

"but I see no reason compactness should trump all other considerations, "

Right, you want to draw non-compact districts to achieve a pre-determined political outcome that can't be reached without districts specifically engineered to that end.

I'm simply pointing out that political science has a well established term for doing that: Gerrymandering.

# posted by

Brett : 6:01 PM

Right, you want to draw non-compact districts to achieve a pre-determined political outcome that can't be reached without districts specifically engineered to that end.

The actual goal cited was "reasonable objective of equitable representation."

Mark provided this definition of gerrymandering: "the manipulation of an electoral constituency's boundaries so as to favor one party or class."

This isn't the same thing as some "political outcome," which can mean a variety of things. Districting is an art form, it isn't reliant on any two criteria or whatever, criteria repeatedly manipulated anyway.

===

Thanks for the analysis Jestak.

# posted by

Joe : 6:18 PM

"Mark provided this definition of gerrymandering: "the manipulation of an electoral constituency's boundaries so as to favor one party or class.""

That serves as well: In a real world where Democrats are disadvantaged by their inefficient distribution, the predetermined objective of "equitable representation", or as I said, a result replicating the outcome proportional representation would have produced, favors a known party. The Democratic party. Take Wisconsin, for instance: The Democratic party actually hired an expert during the litigation to produce a map as favorable to themselves as was possible without grossly violating equal population and compactness, and it still favored Republicans more than Mark's "equitable representation". His goal, in Wisconsin, requires a genuinely blatant gerrymander. Wisconsin is not unusual in that regard.

Jestak: I was not addressing you specifically, but rather Mark's comment immediately prior to mine. But you make some sound points.

Chen and Cotrell used a fairly minimalist set of criteria, and you could defensibly add one or two more, without risking reintroducing gerrymandering on the sly. Respecting geographic boundaries, for instance.

But they did fairly well establish that objective redistricting should NOT be expected to produce Mark's "equitable representation". THAT can only be achieved in a single member first past the post system by genuine gerrymandering.

And Mark's gerrymandering for "equitable representation" does NOT have the effect of achieving proportional representation! Instead, it rigs outcomes here, and outcomes there, in order to produce a net result which it is supposed resembles PR. But while still leaving voters stranded in districts where they are the minority unrepresented.

I favor genuine proportional representation, not mock proportional representation. But if we can't have actual proportional representation, we should simply strive to let the chips fall where they may, not achieve a gerrymandered simulation of PR.

My proposal, until we switch to PR, is to do C&C style simulated redistricting, to generate many thousands of district maps without any reference to suspect criteria such as race or party. And then allot each party on the ballot with a fairly large number of vetos, so that they can eliminate any outliers unusually hostile to themselves.

Then just pick one of the many remaining maps at random.

# posted by

Brett : 6:44 PM

C2H5OH: "And then, of course, there's the can of worms required by having separate registrations for federal and state and local elections."

The VRA did just this.

Does anyone imagine it would actually be "easy" for everyone to have to go and re-register, and have to maintain yet another set of documents to vote? Documents which you would only use every two years?

I never demanded re-registration every two years. We would need to explore a procedure for voters to keep their information current on the federal database.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 6:45 PM

Proportional representation is the target. In a democracy, no other target is appropriate. If we can't have proportional representation, then the ONLY form of districting which meets the objective criterion is one which reproduces proportional representation as much as reasonably possible. Supposedly neutral criteria such as "compactness" are partisan advocacy to "justify" *preventing* proportional representation and are designed to favor minority rule by the Rs.

# posted by

Mark Field : 7:03 PM

I favor genuine proportional representation, not mock proportional representation

What's the distinction?

# posted by

just_looking : 7:11 PM

That serves as well: In a real world where Democrats are disadvantaged by their inefficient distribution, the predetermined objective of "equitable representation", or as I said, a result replicating the outcome proportional representation would have produced, favors a known party.

Is this like your modern day view of "Indians not taxed" or what?

The other person actually didn't say that, but perhaps by transference, it is assumed that really it is just some crooked partisan thing. To the degree a system that is applied by partisan political actors -- thus the push for independent commissions as an imperfect best case scenario -- will be tried to be gamed somewhat to the degree there is some play in the joints, that is far from surprising.

And, parties are divided by overall political ideology. What is "equitable" is going to be debated. But, if the voters under such a system favor one party, maybe it is because that party is a better choice.

I don't know about proportional representation though understand the push. But, you STILL will have drawing district lines for various things. So, it will be a thing.

# posted by

Joe : 7:16 PM

a result replicating the outcome proportional representation would have produced, favors a known party. The Democratic party.

You have a bizarre definition of what it means to "favor a known party."

A normal person would think it meant a system that gave the "known party" representation out of proportion to its numbers, as in "The senate favors the Republican Party."

But to you, if the Republicans don't enjoy disproportionate representation that somehow "favors" the Democrats. what a strnge view.

Do you really expect anyone to believe that your cheers for compactness are anything but an effort to favor the Republicans? Have you convinced yourself, as you so often do, that the thing that benefits your side is right and good and just, and no one could possibly argue with it?

"Let the chips fall where they may," as long as they are weighted to fall on your side of the line.

Sounds like it. It also sounds like you think it's just poor strategy for Democrats to live in cities and that if they want equitable representation they should just move out to the farm. It's their fault for choosing undesirable (to you) places to live. In fact, you've said as much. Just amazing.

# posted by

byomtov : 7:20 PM

Proportional representation is the target. In a democracy, no other target is appropriate

Perhaps minority or community-of-interest representation are also laudable targets. Both those reasons are why many cities have voting by ward rather than at-large.

# posted by

just_looking : 7:20 PM

I agree that Proportional Representation, REAL PR, is the appropriate goal.

Simulated PR is not PR. It is a mockery of PR, a picture of PR where the individual pixels are regular elections rigged by gerrymandering. Nobody actually gets proportional representation.

Under proportional representation, political minorities in a district also get to pick representatives, they are not left unrepresented. Political parties are not discouraged from competing in areas where they can be fairly certain not to achieve that majority. The parties actually bother competing practically everywhere.

Not so in your simulation of PR, where the parties will still rationally not bother with running candidates in districts where they'll expect to lose, and the minority in each district are still left unrepresented. Only they're likely unrepresented by somebody much further away, who is actually from a different community. (Due to the non-compact nature of the districts used to accomplish this.)

Because the minority as well as the majority have incumbent representatives visible to the district, the threshold for their swapping places should be lowered in real PR. While your simulated PR is perfectly consistent with each individual district being rigged to the point of being noncompetitive.

Let's do the real thing, but until we do, just exclude partisan considerations entirely from redistricting, not make them central.

# posted by

Brett : 7:24 PM

Simulated PR is not PR. It is a mockery of PR. [...] the minority in each district are still left unrepresented [...] While your simulated PR is perfectly consistent with each individual district being rigged to the point of being noncompetitive

Perhaps you can explain how real PR districts should be drawn? Do you agree compactness doesn't achieve real PR? I'm uncertain that minorities can be represented without chipping away at PR, but I would sure like to know how both goals can be accomplished.

# posted by

just_looking : 7:33 PM

"Perhaps minority or community-of-interest representation are also laudable targets."

I'm not sure what "community of interest representation" is so I can't speak to that. Minority representation is a laudable target, but can be accomplished in a PR system. For example, suppose that members of the state legislature are chosen in a PR system. The seats could be divided proportionate to the statewide vote, and specific members chosen by, for example, ballot within the party. Each party would find it in its interest to select a wide range of members.

"Not so in your simulation of PR, where the parties will still rationally not bother with running candidates in districts where they'll expect to lose, and the minority in each district are still left unrepresented."

Districts should play no role in the system. None at all. A true PR system operates statewide (or nationwide for federal MoC). There's no concern that parties will fail to run statewide or nationwide.

# posted by

Mark Field : 7:36 PM

"Let's do the real thing, but until we do, just exclude partisan considerations entirely from redistricting, not make them central."

This would be taken more seriously from someone who isn't selectively concerned about that and focuses on alleged Democratic wrongdoing so much.

As someone else noted, proportional representation is a choice not taken because other methods also have grounds of support. And, no, not just to have Democrats win. Gerrymandering specifically will benefit different parties at different times.

District representation, e.g., focuses on specific candidates and has a more personal touch than proportional representation, which often is more focused on groups. Our society as a whole likes that sort of thing. Proportional representation in various nations also leads to small parties, often radical in nature, having special power. This can cause difficulties.

Maybe proportional is the way to go. It just seems a rather complex thing and various reasons are in place why it isn't the one chosen writ large in this country.

# posted by

Joe : 7:37 PM

"Proportional representation in various nations also leads to small parties, often radical in nature, having special power."

True. In my view, there would have to be high minimum voter levels for third parties to gain seats. Obviously, lots of folks don't agree with that.

# posted by

Mark Field : 7:52 PM

The seats could be divided proportionate to the statewide vote, and specific members chosen by, for example, ballot within the party

Given it is not uncommon for the person to be desired by the voters rather than the party, I'm not keen on people voting just for the party and not named candidates.

Districts should play no role in the system

Districts can represent communities of interest, which could include urban/suburban/rural, or economic interests such as type of jobs or employer, and demographic interests.

# posted by

just_looking : 7:58 PM

"Do you agree compactness doesn't achieve real PR?"

Compactness or its opposite are both irrelevant to PR. You could literally draw the districts as an Escher tiling of salamanders, and if you still had single member, first past the post elections, you would not have PR, even as as you rigged things to generate the party proportions you theorized PR would produce. While you could draw maximally compact districts, and if you had multi-member proportional representation, you WOULD have PR.

PR has to do with what you do with the votes, NOT what shape the districts are. That's my point: You can't do real PR with single member, first past the post elections. It's a logical impossibility.

All you can do is rig things to produce the party balance you think PR would produce, while every single district would still not have proportional representation.

REAL proportional representation has features that simply can not be achieved with first past the post elections, no matter how you draw the districts. All you can do with what you're suggesting is create a mockery of PR, pretend PR, that still leaves basically all the negative features of first past the post, such as causing parties to not contest most districts, intact.

# posted by

Brett : 8:06 PM

"Given it is not uncommon for the person to be desired by the voters rather than the party, I'm not keen on people voting just for the party and not named candidates."

This could be done via primaries to select the slate.

"Districts can represent communities of interest, which could include urban/suburban/rural, or economic interests such as type of jobs or employer, and demographic interests."

There are 2 problems with this (at least):

1. Districts are incompatible with proportional representation.
2. The number of identifiable interests is, for practical purposes, infinite. In the Federalist papers, Hamilton was reduced to arguing that, for example, merchants would represent their workers. Apart from the fact that this is laughable, note that it was exactly the "virtual representation" theory the British made before the Revolution and that the Americans rejected.

# posted by

Mark Field : 8:19 PM

REAL PR, is the appropriate goal [...] You can't do real PR with single member, first past the post elections

So you are in agreement with Mark Field we should allocate representatives by party based on a statewide (perhaps even nationwide) vote?

# posted by

just_looking : 8:22 PM

No, for legislative positions I propose treating the votes like proxies: Everybody who runs gets a vote in the legislature weighted according to how many people voted for them.

Districts are still useful for representing local interests, and should be retained.

# posted by

Brett : 8:49 PM

Bart:

"The VRA did just this."

Since the states currently run the elections, this is an obvious falsehood.

"I never demanded re-registration every two years. We would need to explore a procedure for voters to keep their information current on the federal database."

I never suggested that people would have to re-register every two years. But I observe that people often misplace documents that they rarely use. The suggestion of yet another document people would be required to keep around in order to use it every two years just seems ... wasteful.

Which, no doubt, is why almost everywhere it is acceptable to register to vote using documents that people typically carry with them.

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# posted by

dominguezmarta : 5:57 AM

# posted by

dominguezmarta : 5:57 AM

"I never suggested that people would have to re-register every two years."

I took him to be suggesting more of a voter registration Jubilee, to clear out accumulated errors, than just requiring people to re-register for every election.

# posted by

Brett : 6:30 AM

Anyway, side note on "connecting the dots"; It's always been a terrible metaphor.

Connect a dot drawings are designed and frequently numbered to produce a pre-determined picture. Making it something you can get right or wrong, making arriving at the intended result a largely mechanistic process.

What Sandy is demanding would be better described as "drawing constellations". With all that implies.

Yes, Sandy, you're outraged that the evil Republicans don't see that this virus justifies implementing every last item on the Democratic party's election wish list, on a rush basis right before a heavily contested election. But, hey, even absent the virus you'd be outraged that the Republican party doesn't roll over and play dead. So, don't expect anybody who didn't already want that program implemented to share your outrage.

Aside from some mask usage, and a bit of extra cleaning, we should conduct this election just like any election. NOT utterly change every procedure just before an election where the parties are already threatening on both sides to treat any glitch as an effort at stealing the election.

Now is NOT a time to be innovating. It's a time to do things precisely by the book.

# posted by

Brett : 7:14 AM

Brett is back in "truth telling" mode that turns out to be anti-Democratic Party. When it suits, he "connects dots" (a valid if open to abuse metaphor; what else is new with
metaphors? he loves to compare things [badly] to bank robbers).

If the word "evil" is off -- Brett did note recently he went back to Catholicism, so I gather good and evil is a thing -- use another one. The buck stops with those in power. Elections are basic to challenge those who did badly there.

Trump and the Republicans did badly.

When a party does particularly badly, the other doesn't just gain power, but so much that they have the power and something of a mandate (as in popular support) to change things significantly. For instance, Republicans over the years were able to change the courts even if the people who elected them often weren't as conservative as the judges selected. This is not novel. It is a thing in elections.

Mr. "bad case of the flu ... hey maybe it will be better in the end with social distancing" (how did that go?) says it is merely about "some" mask usage and "a bit" of extra cleaning. If Brett is not for "innovating," maybe we should follow the lessons of science and disease that teaches that is not enough. That certain mechanisms including more absentee voting are required. This isn't "innovating." It's following basic rules that were applied over the years.

So, yeah, sorta bullshit. When one side really screws up, yes, it isn't a "innovation" for the other side to get power to change things. And, many of the things aren't even innovations. Trump, who WAS ELECTED FOR THIS VERY REASON -- actually innovated a lot there. Sorry for the caps, but this bald audacity is a bit much. Republicans went along. The fix does require not only basic things, but some change. When people screw up royally, that is "the book" over and over again.

# posted by

Joe : 9:42 AM

Brett,

so you would make no accommodation at all for the virus?. That doesn't make sense.

Let's look at Wisconsin. They had trouble getting poll workers, apparently, and the GOP refused to provide any leeway on deadline for counting mail-in ballots. So voters stood in line for hours, in unpleasant weather, in the midst of a pandemic, to vote.

This includes many who requested mail-in ballots in a timely fashion and didn't get them in time.

And that's all just fine with you, and you don't care if it happens nationwide, because, after all, it's mostly just city-dwellers. Right?

You know, what you call "the Democratic party's election wish list," is just steps to make sure voters can vote easily. We don't buy the evidence-free claims - the lies - like those Bart spews above - that Republicans constantly repeat, and see no reason why, in what is supposed to be a democracy - no irrelevant "it's a republic" nonsense, please - that should be a partisan issue. That it is suggests that one party doesn't want voters to vote, a suggestion well-supported by their behavior.

# posted by

byomtov : 9:51 AM

byomtov:so you would make no accommodation at all for the virus?. That doesn't make sense. Let's look at Wisconsin. They had trouble getting poll workers...

Stop the COVID fear mongering and states will have no trouble conducting in-person voting, which eliminates the pretext for blind mailing of ballots out to last known addresses from registration lists which likely have not been scrubbed for years.

There would be more than a little karmic justice if already unenthusiastic Democrats voters disproportionately believed Democrat media COVID fear mongering and stayed home.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 11:04 AM

Fear mongering? According to a link that Bart posted, contracting COVID-19 will basically double your chances of dying in the next year. If you feel that's an acceptable risk, then you are a fool.

And of course, the consequences short of dying immediately are, as yet, still "out there." Does living the rest of your life without a sense of smell, unable to really taste your food, sound good to you?

I wonder if Bart still believes that COVID-19 is comparable to the seasonal flu, as he did back a few months, when he complained about "panic mongering" by experts. Experts who proved to be correct, while Bart ... well, let's be charitable and say Bart is seldom correct.

Oh, and Bart? Democrats are enthusiastic to vote. Not necessarily for Biden, but massively against Trump and all the Republicans who have enabled his insanity.

# posted by

C2H5OH : 12:12 PM

This comment has been removed by the author.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 12:30 PM

This comment has been removed by the author.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 12:30 PM

C2H5OH: Fear mongering? According to a link that Bart posted, contracting COVID-19 will basically double your chances of dying in the next year. If you feel that's an acceptable risk, then you are a fool...Does living the rest of your life without a sense of smell, unable to really taste your food, sound good to you

Perfect example of fear mongering.

Unless you already suffer from one or more comorbidities, COVID does not come close to doubling your already minuscule chance of dying.

I have fought wars and you want me to go wee wee in my skivvies and surrender my freedom over the minuscule chance of COVID symptoms?

Experts who proved to be correct, while Bart ... well, let's be charitable and say Bart is seldom correct.

Name a single "expert" who has been correct about anything concerning COVID beyond the fact that the disease exists and is contagious. ALL of the projections have ranged from wild ass guesses to knowing fictions meant to fear monger. As I have detailed before, the COVID death and infections data collection is completely corrupted. I have lost much of my respect for the medical profession, at least those within the bureaucracy. The three physicians in my family, including my sister with a suppressed immune system, admitted the physicians on the front lines are operating through trial and error because there are no COVID experts.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 12:32 PM

Bart, your innumeracy is showing again. "Doubling your chances of dying" is an example of a "conditional probability" -- if you have no pre-existing condition, your chances are very, very low, although, as you age, they get larger. That's what "comorbitities" means, after all. (And age is one of the worst "comorbities" of all...)

"Correct", as in, if the US re-opens too soon there will be a resurgence of COVID-19? That's basically all the experts, wasn't it? You can stop asking such an idiotic question now.

Frankly, I don't care if you get COVID-19. But if you do and pass it along to others, then we have a problem. Take up skydiving, or cave-diving, or Russian roulette. Those are less likely to kill bystanders.

# posted by

C2H5OH : 12:37 PM

This comment has been removed by the author.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 1:00 PM

C2H5OH said...Bart, your innumeracy is showing again. "Doubling your chances of dying" is an example of a "conditional probability" -- if you have no pre-existing condition, your chances are very, very low

Try almost non-existent.

although, as you age, they get larger. That's what "comorbitities" means, after all. (And age is one of the worst "comorbities" of all...)

The evidence concerning age absent any other comorbidity is very mixed because of the small sample size. Nearly all of elderly dying from COVID have other comorbidities.

"Correct", as in, if the US re-opens too soon there will be a resurgence of COVID-19? That's basically all the experts, wasn't it? You can stop asking such an idiotic question now.

There is zero correlation between any combination of shutdown, detention and mask decrees and COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

Sweden and its relative freedom is nearly completely past COVID deaths.

No correlation, no causation.

Frankly, I don't care if you get COVID-19. But if you do and pass it along to others, then we have a problem.

None of your alleged "experts" claims these decrees will stop the transmission of COVID. Instead, they claim various decrees will slow down the transmission ("flatten the curve") until vaccinations are available. Of course, even if this fiction was fact, it depends on COVID not mutating every year like the flu.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 1:01 PM

I'm just going to make one little point in response to your farrago of nonsense. (The link you posted is to an opinion site, and the analysis is hopeless flawed due to the author's cherry-picking methodology. It is not to be trusted.)

The thing about pre-existing conditions and age is that there seems to be a strong correlation between advancing age and having one or more pre-existing conditions. Which makes your comment about the "lack of evidence" a clear example of willful ignorance. If you stood in a crowd of 70-year-old men and threw rocks, your chances of hitting someone without a pre-existing condition would not be terribly good. And in a crowd of octagenerations, much worse.

# posted by

C2H5OH : 1:07 PM

C2H5OH: The link you posted is to an opinion site, and the analysis is hopeless flawed due to the author's cherry-picking methodology. It is not to be trusted.

The American Institute of Economic Research is a think tank. The author Jeffrey A Tucker is a widely published economist. You know, one of the experts for whom you normally check your critical thinking and common sense. Tucker actually linked to three other sources documenting why there is zero correlation between any combination of shutdown, detention and mask decrees and COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths; including one with graphs which show the massive disconnect.

You are welcome to show any evidence demonstrating a correlation between these variables. You do not because there is none.

The reality is you only cite propaganda in the form of "models" which supports your preferred narrative and condemn without even reading any actual evidence which contradicts that narrative.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 1:16 PM

"so you would make no accommodation at all for the virus?. That doesn't make sense."

I clearly stated that mask usage and increased cleaning would be appropriate. Might push to recruit some election workers who aren't senior citizens, too. What isn't appropriate is completely changing the whole process for voting, on the fly. That's a recipe for the election being a dumpster fire.

We're not talking super-Ebola here. Covid 19 just isn't so horrible that you have to have the whole country on lockdown election day.

# posted by

Brett : 1:33 PM

“These polls are GREAT news for John McCain!” Sniffles DePalma 2008

This quote from Sniffles pretty much sums up his entire life. Pick a single piece of evidence that supports the bullshit that he believes, and ignore all the other overwhelming evidence that what he believes is bullshit.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 1:35 PM

Jeffrey Tucker?

Wikipedia:

He studied economics as an undergraduate at Texas Tech University and Howard Payne University,[7] where he first encountered the literature of the Austrian School. He later enrolled as a graduate student in economics at George Mason University.

In other words, he managed an undergraduate major, and then didn't get far in graduate school. I find no evidence that h has ever held a position involved in economic policy-making.

The author Jeffrey A Tucker is a widely published economist. You know, one of the experts for whom you normally check your critical thinking and common sense.

He is an adherent of the Austrian school - in other words, a crank and an ideologue, and not remotely an expert.

"Widely published" is nonsense. Despite the claim that he has written "many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press" I can, unsurprisingly, find no scholarly articles attributed to him. A search of SSRN turns up none. So he and AEIR are frauds.

I guess those books he churns out at AEIR, which seems to be a home for gold bugs and the like, are what you are referring to. They're fans of Judy Shelton, it seems.

About what I'd expect from you.

# posted by

byomtov : 2:13 PM

That's a recipe for the election being a dumpster fire.

Well, Trump is doing his best to make it a dumpster fire. Trying to screw up the Post Office, among other things, to generate problems with those mailed in ballots.

# posted by

byomtov : 2:18 PM

byomtov:

You can't even offer a kill the messenger logical fallacy without lying.

Jeffrey A Tucker writes for a variety of think tanks and has published multiple books.

Subscribing to the Austrian school of economics makes Tucker more qualified than all the Keynesian and Democratic socialist economists in the Obama administration combined.

However, beyond being able to read text for content, read a chart and understand the concepts of correlation and causation, Tucker's qualifications in economics are largely unnecessary for citied article. A high school student should be able to comprehend the studies to which Tucker linked.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 2:30 PM

Bart,

You seem to be short on the ability to reason, scientifically. As a pointless exercise, here are some clues:

Any result which contradicts a known and accepted scientific fact must have exceptional evidence to back it up. In this case, since the conclusion that social distancing, shutdowns, and the like are based on the germ theory of disease, which dates from Pasteur, and is not disputed by any sane scientist, the conclusion that they do not work must be viewed with great suspicion.

Why did the author of that "analysis" choose such an odd bunch of nations on which to base the conclusion? 6 nations that were largely in the "first wave" of infections nations, compared with 6 nations in Africa (and Sri Lanka, on an island). Gosh, do you suppose there might be something at work here that is obscuring the statistics? (And by the way, any time there's a statement like "6" you have to suspect cherry-picking. A real scientist would have done some checking to see if the result changes if the number of nations changes -- it's not like there's any shortage of nations...)

How does the author conclude that social distancing and shutdowns are worthless? Wouldn't it be equally viable to conclude that even more severe measures would be better?

And finally, any time you have a result out of a "thinktank" you need to look at who is funding and buying the result. In this case, the organization is funded by people like the Koch brothers. They are not to be trusted. The person may have written thousands of articles, and published many articles, some scholarly and many in the "popular press" -- but how often has he been cited by other researchers? Google citations does not show *any*.

# posted by

C2H5OH : 3:04 PM

This comment has been removed by the author.

# posted by

Joe : 3:07 PM

Around 150K and counting dead with many, many more sick, some with serious lingering effects. But, "nothing much to see here."

Aside from some mask usage, and a bit of extra cleaning, we should conduct this election just like any election. NOT utterly change every procedure just before an election where the parties are already threatening on both sides to treat any glitch as an effort at stealing the election.

Not even steady mask usage. "Some" mask usage. Not even heavy cleaning. Only "a bit" of extra cleaning. When pressed, maybe a few more things. At some point, even Brett has to admit this isn't quite a "normal" election. Not just a "bad flu season."

Note the hyperbole and misleading summary. Voting is not "utterly changed." Take New York in June. Did things "utterly change"? No. Absentee voting was expanded but there was still in person voting.

Also, the change was not "just before" the election. Experts are pushing to make sure things are set up months before the general. This doesn't mean no special rules will not be appropriate closer, if events so dictate. If an outbreak arises in October, it is silly to not leave open a need to tweak things as events dictate. Current election laws in many states clearly have such flexibility. Social distancing etc. might generally make it sensible to tweak things. And, rules should be applied fairly. A rule that favors seniors seems to blatantly violate the 26A, for instance.

Also, "every glitch" is not seen as "stealing" the election by the average person. It is ironic that a Trump supporter is saying this, since his guy is a chaos agent promoting the idea that the election is going to be illegitimate.

Since Brett is promoting himself as an honest broker ("both sides"), perhaps he can join with the Democrats to assure that months before the election clarity is in place. Again, sometimes, there is an actual attempt to do things that interfere with the election. Ignoring, e.g., the Trump controlled post office possibly doing stuff that interferes with mail in ballots is silly when evidence is available that is a concern. Slowdowns have already been cited, including by those with mail-in businesses and those with connections to the post office specifically.

# posted by

Joe : 3:15 PM

Bart,

he doesn't write for a variety of think tanks. He writes for a variety of ideological propaganda mills. That's all.

He has zero scholarly publications, the website's claims notwithstanding.

Subscribing to the Austrian school of economics makes Tucker more qualified than all the Keynesian and Democratic socialist economists in the Obama administration combined.

You're a fool. A complete fool.

# posted by

byomtov : 3:21 PM

"Around 150K and counting dead"

It's over 200K when you count excess deaths (which we have to do because of disparities in state reporting).

# posted by

Mark Field : 4:00 PM

C2H5OH:

There are no established scientific facts showing a correlation between shutdowns, detention and mask decrees and COVID infections, hospitalizations and deaths. Models are at most hypotheses and models which conflict with reality (which all COVID models have) is evidence the hypotheses is incorrect.

Science is not a popularity contest. Common wisdom among scientists is often incorrect. See the consensuses the Earth is flat and human CO2 emissions appreciably warm the atmosphere.

ONCE AGAIN, if you disagree, feel free to show actual evidence of correlation and then we can start to discuss causation, because correlation alone does not equal causation

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 4:25 PM

"perhaps he can join with the Democrats to assure that months before the election clarity is in place."

Kind of tough to join with Democrats in doing something Democrats aren't doing. The existing laws represent clarity, after all.

# posted by

Brett : 4:42 PM

"No, for legislative positions I propose treating the votes like proxies: Everybody who runs gets a vote in the legislature weighted according to how many people voted for them."

By all means, let's apply this rule to the Senate.

# posted by

Mark Field : 4:45 PM

Bart, there is no point in discussing something that violates basic scientific principles. There is only one possible explanation: the result is based on a flawed choice of data, flawed assumptions, or the analysis is in error.

Look, this isn't rocket science: COVID-19, like all viral diseases, is spread by human contact. Reduce human contact sufficiently, and the virus does not spread.

It is idiocy of a special nature to pretend this is not so.

# posted by

C2H5OH : 4:57 PM