Re: Benefit of the doubt? "Notas Badoff" might not be American?
Is there reputable evidence that there's been "selective disenfranchising"? The districts are redrawn every 10 years, when there's an official census. Whichever party is in power at that time can finagle the lines this way or that way as they choose - sometimes eliminating whole districts over HERE and creating a new one over HERE, stretching and contracting them in whatever manner they opt to use...its not the privilege of just one party. Simple fact - if you can change something every 10 years, do you actually think that, in any way, provides *ANY* advantage for more than may be one election, given the way neighborhoods change drastically in just half that time? What was halfway to a slum can be "gentrified" in only a year or two and suddenly be a hot spot for idiot money, with people moving from the formerly grande area over THERE to the new hotspot, Between 10 and 20 percent of Americans move to another home in another place each year...given the population, that's somewhere between 30 and 60 million every year. After just 2 or 3 years, a district that was once a bastion for this party can become very partisan the other way. After 5 years, just halfway to the next census and next district drawing, the population can shift dramatically...and if the district includes apartment complexes, where people may be there and gone in only a year.
Thing is, if a district has, for round numbers, 20,000 people in it when its drawn up, five years later it might have 32,000 people and of those, only 5,000 were there five years ago. Any manipulation is outstripped by events so fast there's no point.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
