More on gerrymandering

To make it a little easier to ponder the data in the video in that last blog, I've presented it in a somewhat different form below.  The gist of it is that gerrymandering has gotten completely out of control in much of the United States.  The net effect is that many, many Americans are being robbed of their right to fair representation.  This is certainly not something the Founding Fathers envisioned, and if allowed to continue, it can only do serious harm to our political system.  At the very least, it robs Congress of its credibility (which is shockingly low already).  The examples given below all happen to be Republican-controlled states, but I'm sure Democratic examples can be found as well.   It is very clear that the principle of one person, one vote has been grossly violated in each.  Since neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are likely to do anything to correct this problem, it will almost certainly be up to the courts.  Nonetheless, it needs to be corrected, and the sooner the better.

Ohio:  The popular vote for members of Congress were as follows: 
D:  2,307,973
R:  2,549,546
Thus, the Republicans had a slight edge.  However, the actual representation for the state is now
4 Democrats and 12 Republicans.  This means that it took 876,993 votes to elect a Democrat and only 212,462 to elect a Republican.  Each Republican vote counted 4.1 times each Democratic vote.  That is simply appalling.

Pennsylvania:
Popular vote:  D:  2,794,078 vs. R:  2,710,070 (Democrats with a slight edge.)

Elected:  5 Democrats vs. 13 Republicans
Here it took 2.7 Democratic votes to every 1 Republican vote to elect a Congressman (558,816 each vs. 208,467).

Michigan:

Popular vote:  D:  2,327,985 vs. R: 2,086,804 (Democrats with a clear majority.)
Elected:  5 Democrats vs. 9 Republicans; 465,597 votes required for each Democrat vs. 231,867 for each Republican.  The ratio here is 2.0:1.

Virginia:
Popular vote:  D:  1,806,025 vs. R:  1,876,761 (Slight majority for the Republicans)
Elected:  3 Democrats (requiring 602,008 each), 6 Republicans (requiring 312,794); ratio: 1.9:1

Wisconsin:
Popular vote:  D:  1,443,190 vs. R:  1,399,871 (Democrats with slight majority.)
Elected:  3 Democrats (requiring 481,063 each), 5 Republicans (requiring 279,974 each); ratio: 1.7:1.

State legislatures in these states are totally under Republican control.