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Comment by opportune | Hacker News Reader

But isn't that gerrymandering for democrats instead of republicans? I am open to the idea that districts could be drawn based on more than geography, but to me this just sounds like "helpful" gerrymandering simply because it assists the democrats instead of the republicans.

There's no reason for congressional districts to be based on race, IMO.

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You could argue that one race votes for one party over another, but the VRA goal was to ensure minority representation, regardless of the party affiliation. Full Stop.

That's a fair concern, but to me it seems like an "easy" yet flawed solution to systemic oppression, kind of like affirmative action. For starters, by drawing districts specifically along racial lines for minorities, you are de facto also drawing the other districts along racial lines for white people. I also think that more diversity in congressional districts is a good thing, as it avoids "lock-in" districts where the incumbent has essentially a 100% chance of winning every election due to homogeneity of their voters. Of course, the other side of the coin is that minority populations can get "diluted" to the point where they can be safely ignored by politicians.

I believe the real solution to our problems is to move away from geographic representation in its entirety. It's too easy to cheat, and by design it only ends up allowing representation of around half the constituents in its area. I'm not sure what could replace it; perhaps a parliamentary system based on opt-in voting blocks could work. But in its present form it does seem deeply flawed.

What could replace it is a sufficiently advanced delegative democracy such as LiquidFeedback. The idea is that parties self-organize when sufficiently many votes are delegated to a single person or entity, but they can dissolve and reform at any time.

Some sort of transferrable vote scheme would probably allow a mix of local/personal interests to end up represented.

It's more gerrymandering to get a black Democrat and a Latino Democrat instead of two white Democrats. That type of district doesn't really benefit Democrats as a whole.

I agree it's not a very good solution to minority representation, though. I think multi-member districts with transferable votes would do a better job of allowing minorities to get representation naturally instead of having to be intentionally grouped together.

No, that's gerrymandering for minorities instead of the majority. THe fact that many minorities support and run as Ds is beside the point.

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