Not many, if any. This is much more typical of the Dem vote: concentrated in dense areas. The GOP vote tends to be much less densely distributed. This is also one reason why the GOP was able to hold the House -- lots of "wasted" Dem votes padding leads in safely Dem districts, versus a more widely distributed vote that made the GOP viable in a wider array of districts. (But truth is, without gerrymanders, the Dems would likely have taken back the House too.)
Caught this article in the NYT online the other day... http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/109938/welcome-americas-most-gerrymandered-district Maryland’s 3rd congressional district, the most gerrymandered in the nation, is a Rorschach test in the most literal sense. The Washington Post called it a “crazy quilt.” A local politician compared it to “blood spatter from a crime scene.” A federal judge said it reminded him of a “broken-winged pterodactyl, lying prostrate across the center of the state.” DCist suggested we ditch metaphor altogether and change the word “gerrymander” to “Marymander.” What exactly is the reason for that sort of thing? I've read in the past that it offers minorities a chance of having their own representatives but, surely, in what is largely a 2 party system, that also means their views are largely ignored because they only influence their own representatives. IOW, if they were an element, (even a small one), in the fight between the two major parties in more districts, they'd actually have MORE of a say overall. If democrats, say, had to maintain a certain minimum level of support from the Black and Latino voters in the 4 or 5 constituencies in that area, doesn't that mean they have more influence, not less? Of course, that's ignoring the other matter of whether it can be justified logically.
Two interesting contrasts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2012_Electoral_Vote-Cartogram.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2012_General_Election_Results_by_County.png Some crazy graphics: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/ http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2012/
Well, as a Marylander who's been ranting about this gerrymander for months now, this district did what it was supposed to do: deprive conservative Maryland voters (on what we affectionately call the West Coast of Maryland) a Republican congressman. And yet, no one seemed to mind. Maryland is a reliably blue state: we went Democratic in our senate race, 7 of 8 house races, and all four ballot initiatives. No surprise there. But on the "East Coast" of Maryland, which is reliably republican, and which flipped most of those results from the statewide pattern, we still voted FOR the redistricting. I really haven't figured it out yet....
Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_County,_Texas#Politics http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2009-11-01/letterfromkingcounty (Full article behind a paywall unfortunately)
Yeah but that's a total (not voters, total) population of 286. Most apartment buildings have a larger population than that.
But that's a very low density population: So, yes, the numbers are heavily GOP, but the numbers are also very, very small. Which isn't the same category as the high density, high population Dem areas. In other words, the difference here is urban and rural.
You guys asked and now you're giving me crap for answering. I understand the difference in numbers, but its still an insane percentage, regardless. Of course there wouldn't be a huge anti-Dem skew in a large urban area, that's why people live in the cities, so they don't have to live near anti-Obama zealots.
It doesn't make any difference to how the vote works out though, does it? I mean, there's a minimum constituency size to have a certain type of elected official, isn't there?
Not really. If your city charter requires you to vote for mayor, and there's 10 people in town, I suppose someone doesn't have to convince too many people. If there's something Texas has way too many of, its counties. And there are a few small counties that are very, very, solidly Republican.
Are the return envelopes pre-paid or do you pay for stamps? In CO we have to pay for the stamps to mail in ballots.
We have to pay for stamps in WA, but if you don't put enough on, the state/county picks up the difference.
Postmarked by Election Day? In CO, they have to be received by Election Day, so there were plenty of workers outside of county clerks' offices taking people's mail-in ballots on Election Day.
Yup. Postmarked by election day.. Thanks to the vagaries of US mail, there are still ballots arriving in Washington. They basically have up until Nov 27 to arrive. If they arrive before then and the postmark is Nov 6 or earlier, they'll be counted.