Monday, October 11, 2004
Safe Seats in House Keep True Races Rare
Safe Seats in House Keep True Races Rare
Gerrymandering meets GIS and the real battles aren't elections anymore.
The most important driving forces are the careful, computer-aided redrawing of congressional districts and the willingness of incumbents from both major parties to embrace new political maps that help them retain their seats.
The redrawing of political boundaries, a time-honored but once-coarse craft involving considerable guesswork, has evolved in the computer age into a fine science.
Many people insist that they vote for the individual, not the party. But most voters are reliably partisan. Run their voting histories through a few computer programs, and the political demographics of a neighborhood can be calculated with accuracy, allowing creation of districts with stable Democratic or Republican majorities...
- posted by John @ 7:28 AM
