Ohio Issue 1: a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gerrymandering

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Non-Americans don't get our Federal system of government.

I'd venture to guess that very few Americans get how our federal system works. It's truly amazing how many people think that the president has complete power and will vote for someone in the belief that just because they become president they can automatically override anything that the congress says or does almost to the point where a candidate could claim that upon being elected they would cure the common cold on day one and if they don't it's because they were bought off.
Hey, just google it and you'll find that Obama is a reptile and a secret moozlim, communist, Nazi born in Kenya.

[TomFoolery]

I'd venture to guess that very few Americans get how our federal system works.

True.

Even as I was typing my last few responses in this thread, I was laughing all the way to the "post" button because the entirety of my message was what you would find in a textbook written by some idiotic idealist, not in reality written by money.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Direct democracy is about as stupid as it gets. Just imagine for a moment if every item in the federal budget alone had to be voted on by individuals. First,  voter turnout would be much lower than it is now and even if it was 100% nobody would ever have the time to do anything much less go to work. In some abstract ways it might make sense, but in practical terms it would be possibly the least efficient way to pass laws. Very few people ever bother to learn much of anything about candidates for office so tack on that all the details of any law and the public would vote on what? Whether the ballot was printed using serrif type or sanserrif type? Now we're to the point where we're given the choice to vote for the dumbest asshole with money or the candidate with the better hair style. 
Come to think about it perhaps direct democracy might actually be better considering the clowns we get to vote for.

[facebook164]

Sorry. I ment congress, not president...

[PopeyesPappy]

Sorry. I ment congress, not president...

Then your question was answered before you mentioned president. Congressional districts are about local representation. If everyone in New York got to vote on all the New York congressmen most of the congressmen would be from New York City and much of the rest of the state would have no one to represent their interests.

[facebook164]

Then your question was answered before you mentioned president. Congressional districts are about local representation. If everyone in New York got to vote on all the New York congressmen most of the congressmen would be from New York City and much of the rest of the state would have no one to represent their interests.

So what? Is it "the interests" or the people that votes? Small groups should have little representation. Tiny grouos should have no representation at all.

[facebook164]

So what? Is it "the interests" or the people that votes? Small groups should have little representation. Tiny groups should have no representation of themselves at all.

[PopeyesPappy]

So what? Is it "the interests" or the people that votes? Small groups should have little representation. Tiny grouos should have no representation at all.

You asked why we have congressional districts. The answer is it provides for local representation. You don't like it? Is that your point? If so what would you rather see?

[stromboli]

Old gentleman I worked for once told me there is nothing works so well that somebody won't try to fuck it up. I miss old Ralph.....

Districting makes sense if you think about the fact that heretofore the ability to count/correlate individual votes would be near if not completely impossible to do, given the geographic size and mixture of rural versus urban populations to gather it from. There has been a great deal of talk that now we can go to an individual voting system since we are now electronically connected and because of the internet. but until some solid and reliable method of doing that, that avoids the ability to corrupt it comes up, we are stuck with it. Hopefully all the citizenry will follow Ohio's example and clean up their politician's act.

[Baruch]

Harsh.  Some forms of representative calculation, actually give proportional representation to small groups ... better than the American or British winner-take-all districts.  But then we would be more directly represented by parties, rather than by candidates (of parties).  It is a toss up.  If your legislature has too many small groups, you can't form a majority to get legislation passed, and the US would be like Italy.