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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

Uh... drawing a political district on the basis of race is quite expressly illegal in the United States. What is newsworthy here is that it's a pretty clear smoking gun that that is exactly what was happening.

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That I missed. I should have read more carefully. Thank you for the correction.

I agree that that is disgusting.

So, now the question becomes why, unprompted, you launched into such a vehement defense of the nature of his work, without understanding the nature of it.

Because he thought he understood it fully, but, turns out, he didn’t. Which is exactly why he asked the question and then apologized when he got corrected.

Isn’t a brief glance at the shape of some congressional districts a smoking gun that it happens all the damn time?

Yes, but if this were a Democrat strategist NPR certainly wouldn’t have covered it.

NPR covered Democratic gerrymandering in Maryland many times, e.g.:

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/14/577969855/gerrymandering-in-m...

Lol the angle in that story is that Democrats should "give up" gerrymandering to convince Republicans to do so. I don't think this counts as "pro-Republican" (or "anti-Democrat") bias.

The point is that it draws attention to Maryland, which is gerrymandered by the Dems - contrary to your claims that they'd ignore that. Why is it supposed to be "pro-Republican"?

(Nor is it the only story NPR has on gerrymandering in Maryland, by the way - merely the most recent one.)

No, the shape of the district is circumstantial evidence. The people who draw those lines swear up and down (and often under oath, as these things are routinely contested in court) that they would never do this. And because the distinction is intent and not the result, it basically amounts to an unprovable thought crime.

But what we have here is a guy with a bunch of analysis based directly on racial data, and a bunch of emails detailing specific plans and concerns about racial demographics. In this one case we know the relevant boundaries constitute a civil rights crime.

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