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Redistricting 2.0: Cloud Lets Voters Take Part
CWmike writes "As the 2010 U.S. census results arrived, Los Angeles County's politicians started ramping up for redistricting — the once-a-decade, computing-intensive, often contentious process of geographically carving up the populace into discrete parcels of voters. In the past, such decisions were made by politicians using expensive computer systems and software. Participation in the process was limited to an elite few who could afford experts who understood redistricting's arcane rules and GIS technology well enough to game them. This year, however, it won't just be the politicians and special interest groups poring over the data and tweaking boundary lines. All 4.5 million registered voters in LA County have access to a cloud-based redistricting application called the Public Access Plan that lets voters view and modify existing maps and boundaries, submit comments, and even create and submit their own plans from scratch. LA County is among the first government entities to consider providing Web-based tools that allow for direct public participation. 'This notion of public access has changed quite dramatically,' says Tim Storey, a senior fellow at the National Conference of State Legislatures. 'Throwing that wide open is a big step.' The big question now is whether the public will use it."
This is really a major problem of the system.
Back the last time redistricting was done, the redistricting game came out. It showed how eliminating gerrymandering, by forcing decisions to be made without including "percentage of voters of X party", would improve the political process.
Instead, what we're going to see now in most states is what we saw last time. If one party controls a state, they will try to make as many districts as possible that are 55% "theirs" while stuffing the remaining voters that are "not theirs" into as few districts as possible that are 90% or more the opposite party.
Result? Complete lack of representation for most people, courtesy of gerrymandered districts where the only "difference" is whether you get Herman Goering or Adolf Eichmann winning the nomination out of the primaries.
Are there always going to be "safe districts" in areas where one party is in control? Probably. Would there be nearly as many if the job of districting had been long ago taken out of the hands of politicians? Of course not!
(where some states are virtually ignored, and others like CALIFORNIA are flooded by campaigning)
At least California represents a significant portion of the country's population and economy. The more disturbing fact is how important New Hampshire and Iowa are.
If you are a regular, hard working, private sector, tax paying Californian, you are literally locked out of the system. It's just the public employees and the politicians giving each other hand jobs over and over again, only turning to the rest of us for ever more taxes when they need to finance their next round of corrupt horseshit.
Funny.
If you are a regular, hard working, public OR private sector, tax paying citizen in the rest of the nation, you are literally locked out of the system.
It's the "elected representatives" giving handjobs and corporate welfare kickbacks to their robber baron overlords who then ship jobs overseas, raid your pension, and crash the economy evaporating your life's savings and the "personal retirement account" the republicunts insisted was the way to "replace" social security, forcing you to work pretty much as a slave till you die. And you think you have a voice? Sorry. 1% of the population controls more than 50% of the wealth, if you ever try to stand up and voice opposition to them, the Kochs and the rest of the robber barons will have their media puppets refuse to cover the story and launch a series of coverup ads through their money-laundering front groups like the Teabaggers.