Comment by jacquesm

7 days ago

Gerrymandering alone would be enough to disqualify the US elections as 'free and fair' by many standards. And that's before we get into dollars are votes and other little details.

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jacquesm

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pstuart  7 days ago

Indeed. There's plenty of other forms of disenfranchisement (restricted polling access, overly aggressive purging of voter rolls, etc)

It's a pity that this is perceived as such a hot-button partisan topic, because that's not my intent -- I just want to see free and fair elections.

The more distressing fact is that despite my assertion of election fuckery, there's clearly a large number of people that are willing to vote against their best interests because they are so easily swayed by anger and hate. Democracy really is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

stickfigure  7 days ago

Gerrymandering is atrocious and anti-democratic but it didn't affect Trump's election. States' electors are winner-take-all[1] based on statewide popular vote so district boundaries don't factor in.

[1] I just learned there are two exceptions, Maine and Nebraska. But they have few electors (9 total between them) so this was not significant in the 2024 election.

  • pstuart  7 days ago

    But it does affect congressional elections, and despite the effective neutering of the congress, having a majority there is crucial for maintaining power.