A lawsuit challenging Hawaii’s new legislative and U.S. House district boundaries will be settled by a 3-judge U.S. District Court. See this story. When the districts were drawn up, the state used census data but deleted students and members of the U.S. military from the population calculation. The primary is August 11, so this case will move rapidly.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
The 1787 census stuff was due in part to EVIL slavery.
i.e. NO uniform definition of Elector for electing Fed officers.
Inside a State the ELECTORS elect officers — NOT NON-electors – children, etc.
Way too difficult for the armies of New Age morons in the courts to understand.
Hon Queen/Prime Minister Roseanne Barr [Green Tea] wrote:
“WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW: CHECK THIS BULLSHIT OUT!:”
http://www.roseanneworld.com/blog/2012/04/whats-happening-now-check-this.php#comment-25698
The exclusion specified in the Hawaii constitution is based on whether or not a person is resident or not, rather than specifically tied to military or college.
Military pay records have a state code, which determines whether local income taxes are withhold. A large share of military claim states like Texas, Washington, or Florida, which do not have an income tax.
It ends up being a really messy estimate, because they have to guess how many dependents are living in Hawaii, and some of those might actually be residents.
In 2000, the reapportionment commission debated a long time whether or not to include non-resident military. A lot of it appeared to be tied to avoiding the use of canoe districts – districts which combine areas between island groups. Almost all the military are on Oahu, so if you can reduce the apportionment population for Oahu, you may be able to get enough rounding to have whole number of districts for Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai.
It is possible, that the Hawaii constitution’s provisions against canoe districts doesn’t violate equal protection. When legislative districts exceed 5% deviation, the burden shifts to the State to justify their use; but Hawaii may be able to meet that burden rather than having districts separated by hundreds of miles of international waters, which are arguably neither compact nor contiguous.
In 2000, they ended up not making any adjustments for college students, in part because the colleges couldn’t (wouldn’t) useful residency information.
Another concern is that since most of the military population is on Oahu, and is concentrated around Pearl Harbor, if the military population is included, these districts will have relatively small electorates, such that resident voters who live among concentrations of non-residents will have outsize electoral influence.
Does Retired Colonel David Brostrom (in video in linked story) remind anyone of some one they know?
Jim Riley
The districts are not based on populatation in Hawai’i,
since the census did not cover the entire state. Stewart Islands of the State of Hawai’i did not get covered by the United States Census in 2010. Yet they
were included in districts. I an the agent of 176 Stewart Islanders. The Stewart Islands have been part of Hawai’i since annexed in 1856 by the King Kamahamaha
IV at a meeting of the Privy Council in Honolulu.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California.
P.S. Two Stewart Islanders (born in Hawai’i) filed for
POTUS in the June 5, 2012 presidential primary. Yet
Secretary of State, Debra Bowen rejected there run for
POTUS.
Hon Mark Seidenberg [American Independent] wrote;
“P.S. Two Stewart Islanders (born in Hawai’i) filed for
POTUS in the June 5, 2012 presidential primary. Yet
Secretary of State, Debra Bowen rejected there run for
POTUS.”
Me;
We do need to take down road blocks for all elections. I have found that single winner districts encourage a continual down-sizing and the blocking of participation and ballot access. That’s why I like the multi-winner district system. We wanted about 1250 names on our ballot in 2012 so we could elect the top 1000, but unfortunately we have only 529 names on the ballot.
This is a new way of thinking (multi-winner districts and large numbers on a ballot) and the current US-style plurality elections used everywhere using roadblocks with single-winner districts actually creates a two-party system which is a negative, unrepresentative and constricting method.
It’s too bad that more of the readers on BAN aren’t for this.
For any new folks –
1/2 votes x 1/2 gerrymander districts = 1/4 control.
—
P.R.
Total Votes / Total Seats = Equal votes required for each seat winner – via pre-election candidate rank order lists.
Excess winner votes down.
Lowest Loser votes up (repeated).