Fair Elections? In the U.S.? Apparently Not...

So the Economist had a really interesting passage about 'elections' in the U.S. recently:

The best way to make Americans interested in politics is to make the races more competitive. Participation jumped in 2004 because the presidential race looked both close and important. Which points to the most glaring problem of all with American democracy—partisan redistricting. Virtually all the states allow their politicians to gerrymander the boundaries of their districts, creating absurdly-shaped patterns. This makes races pathetically predictable: 98% of congressmen are re-elected, a ratio Leonid Brezhnev might have admired (though even the Soviet fixer would surely have felt the 100% outcome for California's incumbents in 2004 was a tad too obvious). It also drives politicians to the extremes, as they court their real electors, party activists in the primaries.

98% of congressmen get re-elected. Read that one again: even the Soviets weren't that brazen.

What have we become folks, what have we become?