• jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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      11 months ago

      It would also reduce the number needed to win.

      538 EC votes / 2 = 269. 50%+1 for the win so 270.

      Texas drops out, so now it goes from 538 to 498. / 2 = 249. 50%+1=250 to win.

      And suddenly 270towin.com needs a new CNAME.

      Just playing around with what something like that might look like:

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        Yeah, Texas is a reliable GOP vote. Which means losing it would be a massive blow to GOP electoral chances.

        • netburnr@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Not all of us, just need more of y’all to move here and water down their vote. Problem is the germandering makes populated places less impacting than the uneducated rural areas.

          • Baron Von J@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            There’s enough of us here to do it already, we just need to actually go out and vote and we can win the state-wide and presidential elections here. In 2020 Biden received more votes in Texas than in New York. The metro area populations of Houston, Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio are more than half the state population. If Harris County’s efforts to expand mail-in voting (by sending mail-in ballots to all ~2.4M registered voters in the county) Biden may have won the state, as he only lost by ~620k.

            • netburnr@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              I vote every time and post in the Austin community as much as I dare to encourage others. That’s about all I can do.

          • PugJesus@kbin.social
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            11 months ago

            Gerrymandering has a very limited effect on presidential elections, which is what was mentioned.

            • squiblet@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              Voter suppression and other unequal access to voting make a big difference. For instance, the “one drop off box per county” bs they schemed up, inadequate in-person facilities in urban areas leading to long lines, and how people don’t get voting day off work. Not to mention the fascist chuds planning to stand around with guns at voting facilities to “monitor”.

            • zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              It still has a big indirect impact. People are less likely to vote if they feel like their vote doesn’t matter as much, and someone in a heavily gerrymandered state does in fact have their vote matter less, at least locally. Turnout would probably be measurably higher if the districts were fair or competitive.

              There are other indirect effects too - there are plenty of states where Republicans are only able to pass voter-suppressing policies because of the legislative edge they hold thanks to gerrymandering.