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Virginia Senate, or how to turn a tie into a Republican majority in one easy step

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Posts

  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Well for districting purposes, my goal would be to make sure the districts are drawn fairly and done in a manner that ensures the people feel they are being represented. I dislike gerrymandering because the goal is to make sure that one side can never lose, which makes people feel like their vote doesn't matter since the system is rigged.

    I lean more towards a nonpartisan board drawing up districts because I think there are too many nuances that a machine can't account for. For instance, you could prioritize minority-majority districts as the first things to be put together but as the GOP showed, you can craft minority-majority districts in a way that harms minorities by making sure you get 2 or more districts that will never elect the minority friendly party (let's be honest the current GOP is pretty hostile towards minorities) for every minority-majority district made.

  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • MelokuMeloku Ask me about my Illusions Registered User regular
    Soralin wrote: »
    Mill wrote: »
    My understanding with computers is that you can't ever really delete everything off anything that would store data. The only way you could get away with tampering with the electronic vote, is if you physically destroy anything that contains memory. I'd hope states with electronic voting machines had a set up where they A) don't lose any of those machines B) no one can pull out any parts without someone else being present and C) if things look fishy the parts that store data are sent to a trustworthy party that has the means to retrieve any deleted data.
    Nope, your understanding is wrong. Most operating systems, when you delete a file, simply delete that file's entry in the directory system, effectively leaving it still there, but marking the space it occupies as free to be overwritten, because it's faster than deleting the whole file. But there's nothing preventing a program from just deleting a file completely, overwriting the entire thing.

    There are some procedures to theoretically recover deleted data that's been 0'd out with the right equipment and a lot of work, at least with some magnetic storage, since a bit that just flipped from 1->0, and one that went from 0->0 might have some slight differences. But even that can be easily defeated simply by overwriting your files a few times with random data first, or all 1's then all 0's, etc.

    You can, however, use some trusted hardware (it's a low-power processor and associated circuitry that is enclosed in a tamper-proof shell that destroys itself if someone tries to break into it) to implement some write-once read-many restrictions on the devices that are recording the votes - though "trusted" means that we trust the hardware to execute only the provided code, not that the code is correct (so it should be open source and verifiable). Likewise, there are secure verifiable voting systems that can be run through the internet (at least mostly), where tampering with a single vote has a 50% probability to be detected, so doing any significant tampering will basically always be caught, that maintain anonymity. Of course, I'm fairly certain that none of the current electronic voting systems actually have any of these implemented, so as it currently stands, we need some paper trail.

  • ChanusChanus Harbinger of the Spicy Rooster Apocalypse The Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User regular

    Convincing people to vote for you instead of changing the rules?

    WAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

    Allegedly a voice of reason.
  • Gandalf_the_CrazedGandalf_the_Crazed Vigilo ConfidoRegistered User regular
    I'm skeptical that a nationally-led, uber-funded organization qualifies for the term "grass-roots". Didn't we see this with the Tea Party?

    That said, whether it's grass-roots or not, fucking good.

    PEUsig_zps56da03ec.jpg
  • TubularLuggageTubularLuggage Registered User regular
    It's so bizarre to me that in the US, assigning electoral district boundaries (along with many other elements of the electoral process) is handled by explicitly partisan factions. It just seems like such an obviously flawed way to handle such things. Why isn't that sort of thing handled by an independent, non-partisan agency?

  • Captain CarrotCaptain Carrot Alexandria, VARegistered User regular
    Because at first the state legislatures had it, and getting them to give up power is awfully hard.

  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    It's so bizarre to me that in the US, assigning electoral district boundaries (along with many other elements of the electoral process) is handled by explicitly partisan factions. It just seems like such an obviously flawed way to handle such things. Why isn't that sort of thing handled by an independent, non-partisan agency?

    It was given to the state legislatures because the colonies considered themselves independent from each other and only a loose confederation of allies with a unified military effort against the British. So when they wrote the Constitution, they gave the power to draw districts to the states, and then political parties happened as you'd expect and thus: clusterfuck.

    As a thought experiment, imagine the EU had a parliament with actual paramount authority. How would the individual countries get representation? And presumably they'd organize who gets represented within their own nations and that would be controlled by the relevant political processes. It would work pretty much as badly as it has here.

    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • VeeveeVeevee WisconsinRegistered User regular
    I'm skeptical that a nationally-led, uber-funded organization qualifies for the term "grass-roots". Didn't we see this with the Tea Party?

    That said, whether it's grass-roots or not, fucking good.

    I believe the idea is that the group will go after local politics first, taking the traditional grassroots approach.

  • TaramoorTaramoor Storyteller Registered User regular
    edited January 2013
    Chanus wrote: »

    Convincing people to vote for you instead of changing the rules?

    WAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

    Oh God, the comments...

    WHY DID I LOOK!

    http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/Bricobrosse/Fantasy.gif

    Taramoor on
  • ChanusChanus Harbinger of the Spicy Rooster Apocalypse The Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User regular
    So, I know Bob Marshall is in the House and not the Senate, and this doesn't have anything to do with redistricting, but he's such a fucking moron and this is so embarrassingly wrong-headed and idiotic I just had to share and this is the closest thing we have to a Virginia politics thread:

    http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/virginia-coin-who-should-get-face-time/Content?oid=1823959
    For the third year running, arch-conservative Robert Marshall, a Republican delegate from Prince William County, wants Virginia to start printing its own money.

    The reason should be obvious to anyone who watches Fox News. The U.S. financial system, especially under President Barack Obama, as the rationale goes, is in great jeopardy of collapsing. The greenback could go the way of the Confederate dollar almost overnight. And so Virginia should be prepared by issuing its own money.

    Allegedly a voice of reason.
  • LanzLanz ...Za?Registered User regular
    ...

    *sigh*

    waNkm4k.jpg?1
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    I want to kill all the people reporting this for failing to include this from Article I, Section 10, Clause 1: Contract Clause of the US Constitution.
    No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

    What Marshall wants to do is illegal full stop. I'm also pretty sure at this point, SCOTUS would tell fuckers like him to piss off even if they opted to print bills with the bullshit excuse but it also says "derp, derp only says we can't coin." Hilariously, I think that's what this dumb fuck has in mind since there was something about the fucking gold standard.

    Jesus Christ, Marshall is an excellent example of why we should at least make potential state and federal office holders take a test showing they at least understand what are the limits imposed on them by the US Constitution, so that they can't waste people's time. It would also be nice to force all the dipshits to attend a lecture where an economist explains why the gold standard is bullshit, why no sane government official should push for and that anyone who thinks it is a good idea is a fucking idiot.

  • ChanusChanus Harbinger of the Spicy Rooster Apocalypse The Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User regular
    We have an activist Attorney General who gives no shits about the law.

    I don't think there is a single Republican in Virginia worried about what's legal.

    Allegedly a voice of reason.
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Yeah, I really hope some decent dems, who have a shot at winning run against these clowns. I'm not going to delude myself into thinking the dems can win a majority in the house with 2010's bullshit gerrymandering and most eligible voters being fucking idiots that only vote in Presidential election; especially, with a good chunk of this state's population is fucking awful.

  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    edited February 2013
    Sometimes, my state can be real godsdamned depressing.

    On the other hand, the Speaker did something not fucking stupid: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/virginia-state-house-speaker-kills-gop-dirty-trick?ref=fpa

    Fencingsax on
  • ChanusChanus Harbinger of the Spicy Rooster Apocalypse The Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User regular
    I wish the Speaker had done that because it's a bad idea the disenfranchises people and not because it will hurt Republicans' chances at pushing through the rest of their agenda.

    Allegedly a voice of reason.
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