Other than the US, what industrial democracies celebrate gerrymandering as a civic duty?

[Torie]

Inquiring minds want to know!

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

1. What is an industrial democracy

2. Since when do the USA celebrate gerrymandering, especially "as a civic duty"

3. Who are the "inquiring minds"

[Torie]

OK, I will bite this once:

1. What is an industrial democracy

One that is real rather than a faux one governed by law rather than "men," with a reasonably high standard of living.

2. Since when do the USA celebrate gerrymandering, especially "as a civic duty"

Sarcasm can be your friend.

3. Who are the "inquiring minds"

For this purpose you can consider me the "Sun King," around which the universe orbits.


I hope you find this helpful. Have a good evening.

[RI]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#Examples

[Annatar]

Plenty of countries around the world that use a first past the post system end up with elections where 1 party wins fewer votes but more seats, happens in Canada, UK etc all the time.

[vileplume]

Inquiring minds want to know!

Well in the UK Shirley Porter was made a Dame!

Electoral boundaries this side of the pond are drawn by an independent commission so whilst politicians do attempt to pressure/persuade the commission to draw favourable boundaries, with some success, the constituencies/wards are always going to be at least somewhat compact meaning you'll never get American-style tendril-esque lines which zigzag across county/local authority lines. It is important to note that parliament can vote down a review of constituency boundaries that is not to its liking, so perhaps unsurprisingly the outcome of reviews typically favour the governing party though much less so than in the USA.

However despite there being limited options to gerrymander the boundaries themselves what politicians can more easily do is gerrymander the composition of the electorate. In the UK boundaries are not drawn based on total population like in USA or even on total citizens but instead on total registered voters excluding all under 18s, non-citizens and those adult citizens who haven't registered to vote. Before the (now abandoned) 2016 review (they didn't have the votes at that time to get it through parliament) the Conservatives instituted a change to voter registration which scrapped registration as a household and moved to only individual registration. The result was an estimated 1.8% (figure from the Guardian) of the entire British electorate were wiped from the electoral register just before the Boundary Commission was to collate the electorate figures that would form the basis of the new constituency boundaries. Given the nature of the change to registration the voter drop-off was not remotely evenly distributed but heavily concentrated in cities and urban areas with a lot of homes of multiple occupancy (student areas disproportionately). Cambridge for example saw 11% of its total voters struck off the register whilst rural and owner occupied suburban areas saw virtually no drop. The intent of this was simple, to artificially reduce the parliamentary representation of left-leaning urban areas and to artificially increase the parliamentary representation of right-leaning rural areas which would obviously significantly help the Conservatives without them needing to draw a single line.

Now this brings me on to one of the UK's most infamous gerrymandering scandals, with the case of Dame Shirley Porter and the 'Homes for Votes' Scandal. In the 1986 local government election the Conservatives came within 106 votes of losing control of Westminster City Council which was led by Porter. In secret the Conservatives adopted a policy dubbed 'Homes for Votes' by which they would attempt to engineer the social and demographic makeup of the borough, particularly in the marginal wards, to ensure permanent Tory rule. The methods used to do this involved refusing to re-let Social Housing in the borough when it fell vacant and instead using taxpayers' money to renovate the property to make it suitable for sale on the open market. Due to the time taken to achieve this, these homes lay vacant for a long time so the council had to pay a private company to secure them in order to prevent squatters. At the same time as these homes lay empty the council was systematically removing the homeless/those living in hostels from the borough, or failing that only rehousing said people in the safe Labour wards despite the available accommodation in these areas often being unfit for human living, being riddled with asbestos and lacking adequate heating or sanitation. Porter's administration also heavily targeted the council's money for public services e.g. road cleaning, pavement repair etc. towards the marginal wards whilst neglecting the safe ones particularly the safe Labour ones in the north-west of the borough.

In the end Porter's plan was wildly electorally successful and the Tories won a landslide majority in the 1990 elections and for her efforts she was made a Dame by John Major (an honour she still holds). In the end she was found guilty of wilful misconduct and ordered to pay back £12.3 million but seen as she is the daughter and heiress of Sir Jack Cohen the founder of the supermarket giant, Tesco this probably wasn't a particularly egregious punishment for Porter, though she did manage to negotiate it down from an original charge of £43 million.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Malaysia has some mass-scale malapportionment.
In Sarawak, the least most populous seat, Igan, has less than 20,000 people, while the largest, Bandar Kuching, has 82,000, rounding to the closest thousand. Predictably, Igan is in rural areas, while Bandar Kuching is in the heart of the biggest city in Sarawak. Bandar Kuching is in fact the smallest constituency in Sarawak by land area.

The most populous federal district in Malaysia is Bangi, with around 178,000 people. That places it at nine times larger than Igan.

These imbalances are reflected on state level constituencies as well.

Some raise the argument this is justified because rural areas are remote and this means they need closer representation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Malaysian_electoral_districts

Tbh, the term 'industrial democracy' confuses me here because Malaysia actually has a quite respectable industrial sector. Reading the clarification from Torie, it is clear Malaysia does not necessarily qualify, but I only learned this after first posting about Malay malapportionment.