Congressional Districts

[SamSpade]

Every ten years, the Census is conducted for a lot of reasons, but right in the lobby of the Census Bureau, is the Constitutional requirement - for reapportionment of representatives in Congress. It's a small comfort that whatever else happens, they can't eliminate my agency, although they can certainly try and downsize (I believe, at their peril).

But I am pretty sure that, with all of the gerrymandering and disputes - districts are SUPPOSED to have the same number of residents. Right now, that's somewhere in the vicinity of 710,000 people. That translates typically to between 350 to 500 thousand VOTES.

So how is it that SOME districts have closer to ONE hundred thousand votes cast? Is it extreme lack of voter interest? Or are there districts that just don't have many VOTERS? I've been watching as the final districts complete their counting - amazingly, after more than a week - and some of these districts - well, CAL 13 has just around 130,000 total votes cast.

How come?

 

[vraiblonde]

How come?

Is that a rhetorical question?

 

[SamSpade]

Is that a rhetorical question?

No, I really don't know why if districts are specifically drawn up to be 3/4 million people - why in some, the total votes are so small.
Are they mostly underage? Is voter participation down in the 10-19% range?

How come?

 

[vraiblonde]

No, I really don't know why if districts are specifically drawn up to be 3/4 million people - why in some, the total votes are so small.
Are they mostly underage? Is voter participation down in the 10-19% range?

How come?

If you look at districts that are demographically poor, uneducated, and have a ton of social problems - they have a low voter turnout. That stands to reason because those people are trying to scratch out money for their next drug fix - they are only vaguely aware that there is an election happening, and certainly couldn't pick the candidates out of a lineup.

Then there's the question of voter fraud, because it happens and I will fight any stupid progbot who says it doesn't.

So the short answer is, some districts are more civic minded than others, and in some of those districts the election overseers make up for that lack of participation.

 

[Ken King]

How come?

Districts census counts are determined by the number residing there, not registered voters. Districts can have a lot of kids, a lot of felons, a lot of legal and illegal other residents, and then you have those that don't give a crap or any such combination of all.

 

[SamSpade]

Districts census counts are determined by the number residing there, not registered voters. Districts can have a lot of kids, a lot of felons, a lot of legal and illegal other residents, and then you have those that don't give a crap or any such combination of all.

Exactly. Approximate 710,000 per district. Just under 80% of the population is adult (18 and over).
So "kids" don't factor in much unless they're an extreme outlier.
That puts the voting population - registered or not - somewhere around 5-6 hundred thousand.

So some districts, only 15% of the voting population shows up.
Most of the time, it's between 40-60% in a midterm.

If you look at the election results, most districts cast between 250-300 thousand votes.

So - some, they REALLY didn't turn out. Apathy?