[Magdalen] Gerrymandering was Canada's election

[Sibyl Smirl]

On 10/19/15 9:02 PM, Scott Knitter wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 8:27 PM, Kristin Rollins <kristin at verumsolum.com> wrote:
>> My favorite for a long time has been Tobique-Mactaquac.
>
> Love it.
>
> I think our congressional districts are numbered to allow for
> gerrymandering.

Scott, I don't think that it's so much gerrymandering as simple 
redistricting (which can be perverted to gerrymandering, making very 
interesting map mathematical geometrics).  But districts are supposed to 
have roughly equal population numbers, which in a state like Kansas, 
with two big cities, Wichita and Kansas City, and mostly rural land 
area, can be very interesting and problematic indeed.  And populations 
shift all the time.  The very odd shapes a district can get, to make a 
majority of one party, determined by demographics, in some favored 
congressperson's "district", probably very odd shapes in a place like 
the Chicago area which is notorious for that sort of political maneuver, 
is the Gerrymander (the label inspired by someone saying that the map of 
a district which had been redistricted to be safe for a congressperson 
named Gerry, looked like a salamander.)


> I mean, our 9th district here would have a name like
> Evanston-Skokie-Edgewater-Uptown-Lake View-Lincolnwood-Des
> Plaines-Mount Prospect-Arlington Heights. And the next redistricting
> could change more than half of those localities. Can't even name it
> "North Shore" because it reaches way west in a U shape and down a
> narrow leg to pick up our part of Chicago in addition to the rather
> posh but not ultra-posh North Shore burbs. So the neighborhood just
> west of us is not in our district, but Arlington Heights, which takes
> two hours to get to via public transport, is in our district.
>
>


-- 
Sibyl Smirl
I will take no bull from your house!  Psalms 50:9a
mailto:polycarpa3 at ckt.net