Political Partisanship

I have concluded that all of our current political problems can be traced to the development of better computers.  I know that sounds stupid, but stay with me on this:  As computers and software get more and more powerful it is easier and easier to gerrymander congressional districts that are "safe" for one ideological viewpoint.  With the census recording everything from my race to the color of my dog's eyes, that data can be used to draw districts with inclusions and exclusions down to the street level.

Over time, more and more districts are skewed to concentrate voters who don't agree with the party doing the redistricting.  The party in power cedes the concentrated district but gains a stranglehold on the rest.  As a result, all of the districts become concentrated in one direction or the other.  Legislators from liberal districts have to be extreme to make sure their base gets out to vote, and have no incentive to compromise with conservatives because there are not enough conservatives in their districts to vote them out.  Legislators in concentrated conservative districts are also bound to be more extreme in the other direction.  Naturally, our politics become more divisive as computers crunching the census data get better and better.

The solution is two parts:  First, the census should count the number of residents as the Constitution requires.  That's it.  Nothing else.  No one needs to know my sex, race, religion, or ethnicity to determine how many people my Congressman should represent.  Second, those computers should be programmed to draw districts as compact as possible.  In addition to making voting easier, that would mix races, ethnicities, and ideological views within districts.  No legislator could take far left or far right stands without angering a significant number of people whose vote he needs next November.