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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Araph]

You'll probably want to peel that off into another thread, yeah. There's actually been a couple of things like that over the years, so it shouldn't be too poorly received. S'probably better than using this thread, t'boot.

Okay, I'll do that. Thanks for the advice!

You forgot some Ambivalent options.

The questions are actually from the class itself, so, naturally, they're totally ineptly written.

[ed boy]

On the subject of gerrymandering and alternate layouts, I'm not a fan of the split algorithms, because the nature of those algorithms and human habitation means that the points where there will be most confusion over the distinction between two (or more) districts are exactly the points where most people will be living. I'd much rather go for a clustering-based algorithm.

[RedKing]

On the subject of North Carolina and our....special brand of Republicans of late....

Fuck it, just watch this.

Worth noting that the dude was "asked to resign" by the state GOP today. But just....DAMN. Oh, and it should be noted that Buncombe County is where Asheville (a very granola-liberal college town) is located.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Fuck it, just watch this.

If this law hurts college students who are too lazy to get up and get a photo ID, so be it.

Hate. Hate. HATE.

And photo ID's are most certainly not free from the DMV. They cost $15.

Between this and raising my food taxes, my political life is now officially dedicated to making sure the Republicans never control this state again.

[misko27]

According to a comment, he said his actual phone number on a Radio show. Call it and he is there, or he was an hour ago. 828-775-7212

[lue]

Watching that on TDS last night, I happened to notice, from the general vicinity of MSH's quote, that the guy qualified black people and college students as lazy, but not white men. Probably nothing, but it struck me at the time.

[RedKing]

I think the most jaw-dropping part of the whole thing was when Aasif Mandvi goes "So the law's not racist, and you're not racist, right?"

And there's this long pause before the guy goes, "Well......."

And your brain goes, "You're not seriously going to....oh shit, he's seriously going to."

[Helgoland]

The problem with gerrymandering is that it is a decent idea taken to its corrupt conclusion.

The decent idea is that people should be grouped by population density so that rural areas can get a representative who actually cares about their votes. Otherwise you'd get situations where a bunch of people are basically ignored because no politician is going to worry about people who only make up a small percentage of their voting base. So, in theory, you'd have larger rural areas districted together (by total population) with much smaller urban districts and each district is then at least halfway reasonably represented.

Get a variation of the German system - voting districts elect direct candidates, and lists of people provided by the parties are used to add seats so that power distribution in the house corresponds to the popular vote. That even allows for third-party candidates to get into congress without winning a direct mandate!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Hell no. Party lists are extremely undemocratic.

[Sheb]

Why? Usually you can express preferences inside the party list.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It still puts the power to decide upon elected officials in the hands of party bosses. I'd prefer the US not return to the era of Boss Tweed, thanks.

[Sheb]

Would you be okay if the order on the list was decided by a party primary? Because this happens too.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I've seen enough party primaries to know they're almost always washouts. You cannot expect a partisan political organization to hold an impartial internal election. It simply will not happen.

[Sheb]

What do you mean by washouts?

[Helgoland]

Hell no. Party lists are extremely undemocratic.

I was just pitching a simplification of the German system. The actual German system avoids this problem, too: You have a primary vote for the direct candidate, and a secondary vote for the (national) list; the seat distribution in the house has to match the distribution of the second votes, but direct candidates always get in.
Ironically, the secondary vote is the more important one: If you like the local candidate from party A, but hate party A's list and/or program, you give your primary vote to party A's candidate and your secondary vote to party B, whose list (and program) you like better. This forces all parties to make their lists acceptable to the voter, while still allowing you to vote for a candidate without voting for the party (and vice versa).