tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4640470443420164863.post6981210807612447029..comments2024-03-26T10:26:51.288-04:00Comments on Jim Leff's Slog: I'm (Provisionally) for LessigJim Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00007232702717055047noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4640470443420164863.post-11724114607209690632015-10-01T12:00:57.654-04:002015-10-01T12:00:57.654-04:00"How are the poor denied an equal freedom to ..."How are the poor denied an equal freedom to vote? Gerrymandered no clue what that means"<br /><br />Actually, I'm only on Jim's "slog" because of the current Chowhound issues & I have no clue as to whether or not your questions are genuine or dissenting commentary. However, since I think I can shed some light on their answers, I figure "why not"?<br /><br />First of all, when you create documentation criteria in order to vote, those with fewer resources have more trouble collecting (or already having at their fingertips) that documentation. When you need to get that documentation from the local bureaucracy that may have already been instructed to put additional obstacles in the way of your collecting such documentation, there's even less likelihood of you getting everything needed. Then, when you ensure that voting booths are located away from certain neighborhoods & where public transportation does not go directly to the polling sites and are only open at times when getting to them may be a problem for certain folks, well you can see the potential result. There's more, but I'll stop at that.<br /><br />Secondly, gerrymandering is pure genius to skew representation. Lets say you have a mile square location with a couple of blocks of concentrated poor folk (think newly gentrifying urban neighborhoods or rural areas where the poorer folks in these couple of blocks are not land owners and outnumber the others who are, since they are spread out) and this mile square neighborhood gets one representative & is next to a 90% poor neighborhood which will vote the same way as those in the couple of poor blocks. Well, why not take the couple of poor blocks and add them to the adjacent neighborhood's voting precinct? That way, the adjacent neighborhood's one representative stays the same and the non-poor neighbors in the mile square location I'm using as example don't get outvoted by those in the couple of poor blocks and get to elect a representative that would've lost to one similar to the adjacent area. In case you think this doesn't happen (done by both parties everywhere), all you have to do is look at NYC's districts. My reasonably wealthy neighborhood in Bklyn is part of an election district including, not my federal housing project neighbors only blocks away from me, but a downtown Manhattan area with folks very similar to me and my immediate neighbors. Districts in rural Alabama are similarly structured and are not the square, rectangle or circular areas most people would think would comprise an "area".<br /><br />Hope this was somewhat helpful.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11643701888313642182noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4640470443420164863.post-44975750952132510432015-09-08T02:47:15.488-04:002015-09-08T02:47:15.488-04:00I read the link, I don't understand how Lessig... I read the link, I don't understand how Lessig plans to un-rig the elections and how they are rigged in the first place. For example this paragraph.<br /><br />"In the way campaigns are funded, in the way the poor and overworked are denied an equal freedom to vote, and in the way whole sections of American voters get written into oblivion by politically gerrymandered districts that assure their views are not represented, we have allowed the politicians to cheat us of the most fundamental commitment of a democracy: equal citizens."<br /><br /> How are the poor denied an equal freedom to vote? Gerrymandered no clue what that means. I can feel my brain working hard to understand the new information. Muscle_Bursthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02741940323127130332noreply@blogger.com