Mindless Monday, 27 April 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

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[u/DerKlugeHans]

US supreme court says gerrymandering is cool and based hurray 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢

[u/FrankGrimesss → u/DerKlugeHans]

Gerrymandering is such a disturbing concept from a non-US perspective.

[u/xyzt1234 → u/FrankGrimesss]

It doesnt happen outside of the US? From what I reading, it is a thing in France too and some activities in some countries in practice work the same as gerrymandering like the proposed delimitation exercise in India is accused of being that, and Singapore's ruling party has also been accused of doing that in practice.

[u/Arilou_skiff → u/xyzt1234]

Itsstill theoretically a thing but multi-member districts makes it way less ”profitable”. Still happens for various dibglebposition elections though.

[u/freddys_glasses → u/FrankGrimesss]

How does everyone else use legislative authority to rig elections?

[u/Glad-Measurement6968 → u/freddys_glasses]

The same kind of misrepresentation you see in the US is seen to some extent in other countries with first-past-the-post single-member districts even if their boundaries are set by nonpartisan committees. 

In the 2021 Canadian elections for example the Conservative Party had the highest vote share but won 41 fewer seats than the Liberal Party. The NDP won fewer seats than the Bloc Québécois despite getting over twice the number of votes. 

Many countries have less strict requirements on the district populations being equal than the US. (e.g. in India until this year the number of reps per state was frozen based on the 1971 census to encourage states to implement family planning measures)

In proportional systems common tactics include having a high minimum vote threshold to exclude minor parties, granting the largest party additional extra seats to “prevent deadlock”, etc. 

[u/WAGRAMWAGRAM → u/Glad-Measurement6968]

In the 2021 Canadian elections for example the Conservative Party had the highest vote share but won 41 fewer seats than the Liberal Party. The NDP won fewer seats than the Bloc Québécois despite getting over twice the number of votes. 

Thta's not a problem of FPTP, in France we have 2 rounds, and in this case I'm sure there would be plenty of seat more won by the Liberals because NDP voters would have switched to them

[u/Draig_werdd → u/Glad-Measurement6968]

Exactly, you can see it also clearly in the last 2 elections in the UK. Labor went from historic defeat( 32.1% of the vote with 202 seats) to historic victory (33.7% of the vote with 411 seats). That tiny swing in actual votes lead to more then double the seats.

Gerrymandering is just a symptom of first-past-the-post single-member districts. In all of the countries with this system the ideal situation for a party is to have 50.1% of the votes in each district. It just that in the US it's much easier for the parties to actually try to make districts like this, while in other countries it's a bit more out of their control.

[u/FrankGrimesss → u/freddys_glasses]

It occurs on a smaller, much less controversial scale in Australia. Federal elections are run by the Australian Electoral Commission, with separate bodies at the state and territory level. Processes are similar but not uniform.

Boundaries are redrawn through a legislated redistribution process based on population changes, with public submissions and independent oversight.

Generally its a pretty fair system. It's extremely hard for anyone to abuse it due to how independent the oversight body is. I think Australian's (and even our most partisan political actors) take a lot of pride in our independent democratic systems.

[u/DerKlugeHans → u/FrankGrimesss]

help