From: Adam <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the field.near
the bridge">

Monte Davis wrote:
> Adam <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the field.near
the bridge">
> wrote:
>
>
>>A bit like why in your country people
>>gerrymander senate/congressional seats etc.
>
>
> Back when the practice came to be named for Massachusetts governor
> Elbridge Gerry, I'm sure it was just nostalgia for the home country --
> as close as we could get to rotten boroughs :-)

The difference being (A) Rotten boroughs were simply because noone bothered
to change the voting boundaries & (b) not every borough was a rotten
one.

Look at the numbers for incumbents returned in US congressional
elections....my that's democracy any People's Republic would be proud of.

e.g.

http://www.calinst.org/pubs/vote2004.htm

"In contests for California’s House 53 seats, all 51 of the serving
Members of Congress who chose to seek reelection won their races by
substantial margins. The state’s House delegation will continue to include
33 Democrats and 20 Republicans, with party membership also unchanged in
California’s two open House seats -- former Congressman and Attorney
General Dan Lungren won the race to succeed retiring Rep. Doug Ose by a
27-point margin, and former State Senator Jim Costa won the race to succeed
departing Rep. Cal Dooley by 7.4 percentage points."

My 100% of the incumbents got back in.....mais quelle surprise...

Adam

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