Electoral Geography: Gerrymandering, Voter Turnout, Historical Results

1. Electoral Geography:Gerrymandering,Voter Turnout, Historical Results

2. Printed in 1812, this political cartoon illustrates the electoral districts drawn by the Massachusetts legislature to favor the incumbent Democratic-Republican party candidates of Governor Elbridge Gerry over the Federalists. The cartoon depicts the bizarre shape of one district as a salamander, from which the term gerrymander is derived.

3. There are two principal strategies behind gerrymandering: maximizing the effective votes of supporters, and minimizing the effective votes of opponents. • One form of gerrymandering, packing, is to place as many voters of one type into a single district to reduce their influence in other districts. • A second form, cracking, involves spreading out voters of a particular type among many districts in order to reduce their representation by denying them a sufficiently large voting block in any particular district. • The methods are typically combined, creating a few "forfeit" seats for packed voters of one type in order to secure even greater representation for voters of another type.

4. Gerrymandering is effective because of the wasted vote effect - by packing opposition voters into districts they will already win (increasing excess votes for winners) and by cracking the remainder among districts where they are moved into the minority (increasing votes for eventual losers), the number of wasted votes among the opposition can be maximized. Similarly, with supporters now holding narrow margins in the unpacked districts, the number of wasted votes among supporters is minimized.

5. Reduction in electoral competition and voter turnout Effects of gerrymandering: Less competition (mostly in packed ones) Less people turn out to vote (“Why bother, the opposition has more than enough votes to win anyway”) Less meaningful campaigning by candidates Minority groups are not represented proportionally!

6. Incumbent gerrymandering Carved out with the aid of a computer, this congressional district was the product of California's incumbent gerrymandering. This is the district of Democrat Grace Flores Napolitano, who ran unopposed in 2004, obtaining 100 percent of the vote.

7. Changing the voting system • Because gerrymandering relies on the wasted vote effect to be effective, the use of a different voting system with fewer wasted votes can help reduce gerrymandering. The simplest system to change to is straight proportional representation, in which Gerrymandering is impossible as every vote counts no matter where it originated from.

8. What exactly is proportional representation? • It is a voting system that assures that the overall results are proportional to the distribution of votes. If a party receives 30% of the vote it will get approximately 30% representation. In that type of system your vote is always important. The difference between 20% and 30% doesn’t mean anything in a majority winner-take-all election, but it means the difference between 20% and 30% representation in a system that uses proportional representation.

9. Voter Turnout • After increasing for many decades, there has been a trend of decreasing voter turnout in most established democracies since the 1960s. This issue has been much studied, but scholars are divided on what has caused it, with a wide array of economic, demographic, cultural, technological, and institutional factors proposed as the cause of this decline.

10. Voters lining up outside a Baghdad polling station during the 2005 Iraqi election. Voter turnout was surprisingly high despite widespread concerns of violent attacks on polling places.

11. Voter Turnout – Cultural Factors • G. Bingham Powell lists four major attitudes that have a strongly positive effect on voter turnout, attitudes that can take decades to develop: • trust in government • degree of partisanship among the population • interest in politics • belief in the efficacy of voting

12. Voter Turnout • Demographics also have an effect. • Older people tend to vote more than youths, • Populations that are more mobile and those that have lower marriage rates tend to have lower turnouts.

13. Compulsory Voting - Australia • Australians have been required to vote in federal elections since 1924. • Parliament enacted mandatory voting after only 90 minutes of debate, and it's gone largely unchallenged ever since. • Polls regularly show 70 percent to 80 percent of Australians support mandatory voting.

14. Compulsory Voting

15. Compulsory Voting • All Australian citizens over the age of 18 must register and show up at a polling station, but they need not actually vote. • They can deface their ballot or write in Skippy the Bush Kangaroo (Australia's version of Lassie)—or do nothing at all. • What happens if you don't show up on Election Day? • You'll receive a fairly polite form letter. At this point, you can settle the matter by paying a $15 fine or offering any number of excuses, including illness (no note from your doctor required), travel, religious objections, or just plain forgetfulness.

16. Australia: Arguments used in favor of compulsory voting: • Voting is a civic duty comparable to other duties citizens perform (e.g. taxation, compulsory education, or jury duty). • Parliament reflects more accurately the "will of the electorate." • Governments must consider the total electorate in policy formulation and management. • Candidates can concentrate their campaigning energies on issues rather than encouraging voters to attend the poll. • The voter isn’t actually compelled to vote for anyone because voting is by secret ballot.

17. Australia:Arguments used against compulsory voting: • It is undemocratic to force people to vote - an infringement of liberty. • The "ignorant" and those with little interest in politics are forced to the polls. • It may increase the number of "donkey votes" (bad votes that don't get counted). • It may increase the number of informal votes (ballot papers which are not marked according to the rules for voting). • Resources must be allocated to determine whether those who failed to vote have "valid and sufficient" reasons.

18. Examples of Bushmanders! Bullwinkle • (New York's 12th; Hispanic majority)

19. Pair of Ear Muffs • (Illinois's 4th; Hispanic majority)

20. Mark of Zorro • (Louisiana's 4th; black majority)

21. Satire Man peers under locked ballot box Date: 2005-03-31 Artist: Dale Cummings

22. Post-election America is red, white, black and blue Date: 2004-11-03 Artist: JD Crowe

23. Bush vs. Gore 2000 In this map and the following series of maps, the color Blue represents the Republicans and the color Red the Democrats.

24. Bush vs. Gore 2000 http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html

25. Florida 2000 http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html

26. Florida 2000 • Presidential Candidate; Vice Presidential Candidate; Party Popular Vote; Electoral Vote • George W. Bush Richard Cheney Republican 2,912,790 48.85% 25 • Albert Gore Jr. Joseph Lieberman Democratic 2,912,253 48.84% 0 • Ralph Nader Winona LaDuke Green 97,488 1.63% 0 • Patrick Buchanan Ezola Foster Reform 17,484 0.29% 0 • Harry Browne Art Olivier Libertarian 16,415 0.28% 0 • Other (+) - - 6,680 0.11% 0

27. Bush vs. Kerry 2004

28. Bush vs. Kerry 2004 http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html

30. Nixon vs. Kennedy 1960 http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html

31. 1960 Electoral Summary Presidential Candidate Vice Presidential Candidate Political Party Popular Vote Electoral Vote John Kennedy Lyndon Johnson Democratic 34,220,984 49.72% 303 56.42% Richard Nixon Henry Lodge Republican 34,108,157 49.55% 219 40.78% Unpledged Electors - Democratic 286,359 0.42% 15 2.79% Other (+) - - 216,982 0.32% 0 0.00% http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html