Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Illinois 4th Congressional District says "Hold my Old Style."

That's the one I was really trying to remember, but couldn't.

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

The goal is to have fewer districts that look like, for example, MI-11:

Why? The shape is an entirely arbitrary measure of whether a particular district is well drawn or not. Why squares? Why not triangles or hexagons or trapezoids?

You need a different goal and then gerrymander the districts in favor of that goal. What is it? All like minded people together? All like minded people split evenly? People who like D&D in one and BMX racing in another? What do you want to accomplish?

[manurespreader]

Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

Why? The shape is an entirely arbitrary measure of whether a particular district is well drawn or not. Why squares? Why not triangles or hexagons or trapezoids?

You need a different goal and then gerrymander the districts in favor of that goal. What is it? All like minded people together? All like minded people split evenly? People who like D&D in one and BMX racing in another? What do you want to accomplish?

I live in Michigan 11 and I have been working on this issue for a number of months.

As in many other areas, the guys in power see this as a threat to them and are doing everything they can, including lying about what will happen or how it works, to defeat it.
They also say if it passes they will sue every way possible to prevent change and thus every decision will be made by a judge in the end. This I do not believe, will be the result in the end, but it is what they say they will do..

I'm in favor of the change and I think it will benefit the people of the state. As far as methodology, there are a number of mathmatical models, but one thing I am against is using AI to make the decisions. As it is now, 21 states already have commissions to draw the districts.

[joecct]

Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

Maryland 3rd for the win!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary...onal_districts

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

I live in Michigan 11 and I have been working on this issue for a number of months.

As in many other areas, the guys in power see this as a threat to them and are doing everything they can, including lying about what will happen or how it works, to defeat it.
They also say if it passes they will sue every way possible to prevent change and thus every decision will be made by a judge in the end. This I do not believe, will be the result in the end, but it is what they say they will do..

I'm in favor of the change and I think it will benefit the people of the state. As far as methodology, there are a number of mathmatical models, but one thing I am against is using AI to make the decisions. As it is now, 21 states already have commissions to draw the districts.

Thanks, I empathize, but my point wasn't that MI 11 is well drawn, it is that the shape of any given district is an arbitrary measure of whether it works or not. People don't live in geographical squares or any other shape. Presumably MI 11 is that shape as a result of gerrymandering it toward a specific goal. In this case, grouping voters in such a way as to give one party an advantage over another.

My point is that Fade said we should start over, draw squares and adjust them for population. Why? Why draw shapes on a map? What is the goal of that? Suppose that randomly results in districts that give R's +100 house seats? Are we still good?

What do these committees use as a goal when drawing district lines? That it looks nice on a map? That certain kinds of people are grouped together? What is the goal? Define that, then you can draw the lines.

[joecct]

Thanks, I empathize, but my point wasn't that MI 11 is well drawn, it is that the shape of any given district is an arbitrary measure of whether it works or not. People don't live in geographical squares or any other shape. Presumably MI 11 is that shape as a result of gerrymandering it toward a specific goal. In this case, grouping voters in such a way as to give one party an advantage over another.

My point is that Fade said we should start over, draw squares and adjust them for population. Why? Why draw shapes on a map? What is the goal of that? Suppose that randomly results in districts that give R's +100 house seats? Are we still good?

What do these committees use as a goal when drawing district lines? That it looks nice on a map? That certain kinds of people are grouped together? What is the goal? Define that, then you can draw the lines.

If the registered voters in a state are 50/50 then the districts should line up with half GOP and half D. If there's an odd #, the party in charge of the legislature should draw the odd district to fit them.

60/40 (like we have here), then .6x8 = 5 D and 3 GOP. But given where the population lives DC suburbs are heavily D, rural MD is heavily GOP, that may be difficult.

Boundaries should be logical. The MD-3 is not.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

Why? The shape is an entirely arbitrary measure of whether a particular district is well drawn or not. Why squares? Why not triangles or hexagons or trapezoids?

You need a different goal and then gerrymander the districts in favor of that goal. What is it? All like minded people together? All like minded people split evenly? People who like D&D in one and BMX racing in another? What do you want to accomplish?

Thanks, I empathize, but my point wasn't that MI 11 is well drawn, it is that the shape of any given district is an arbitrary measure of whether it works or not. People don't live in geographical squares or any other shape. Presumably MI 11 is that shape as a result of gerrymandering it toward a specific goal. In this case, grouping voters in such a way as to give one party an advantage over another.

My point is that Fade said we should start over, draw squares and adjust them for population. Why? Why draw shapes on a map? What is the goal of that? Suppose that randomly results in districts that give R's +100 house seats? Are we still good?

What do these committees use as a goal when drawing district lines? That it looks nice on a map? That certain kinds of people are grouped together? What is the goal? Define that, then you can draw the lines.

That is a fair point. My "start with a grid" plan may very well be flawed. At the end of the day, what really I don't want is districts drawn so crookedly, as to clearly favor one party over the other, and in some cases put the offices of a Congresshuman in a fairly "dense" district an hour away from some of their constituents. IL-4 is among the most egregious examples. It's a ridiculous-looking jigsaw of Chicago neighborhoods that likely favor Democrats.

I live in the far eastern portion of MI-08 - that little panhandle right on the county line. Rep. Bishop is from my town, but his offices are in Brighton almost an hour away (with no traffic). Geographically, that is about the middle of his district, which also includes most (all?) of Michigan State's campus. MSU is about a 2-hour drive from me (slightly under that).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michig...ince_2013).tif

Is that fair? I don't feel it is, given that I'm in the most population-dense part of his district, but convince me that it is.

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

I think that’s correct. Don’t draw a ridiculous jagged line to pack all of one party into another. Clearly in some areas it won’t matter as much

[LynahFan]

Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

That is a fair point. My "start with a grid" plan may very well be flawed. At the end of the day, what really I don't want is districts drawn so crookedly, as to clearly favor one party over the other, and in some cases put the offices of a Congresshuman in a fairly "dense" district an hour away from some of their constituents. IL-4 is among the most egregious examples. It's a ridiculous-looking jigsaw of Chicago neighborhoods that likely favor Democrats.

I live in the far eastern portion of MI-08 - that little panhandle right on the county line. Rep. Bishop is from my town, but his offices are in Brighton almost an hour away (with no traffic). Geographically, that is about the middle of his district, which also includes most (all?) of Michigan State's campus. MSU is about a 2-hour drive from me (slightly under that).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michig...ince_2013).tif

Is that fair? I don't feel it is, given that I'm in the most population-dense part of his district, but convince me that it is.

Problem is if you DON'T intentionally bias the districts toward one party or the other and every district really does end up 50-50, then one party could easily get all of the seats with just a few hundred vote total advantage - an "electoral college" for the legislative branch. If the goal is to have the congressional delegation split match the total popular vote (say, 5-2 in a 7-seat state), then the surest way to do that is to make 5 and 2 "safe" districts.

New crazy idea: how about each party in that 7-seat state puts forward a slate of 7 candidates, in rank order of the party's preference for who gets to serve. People vote for the slate in a single state-wide election, and if the votes split 5-2, then the top 5 from the majority party are seated and the top 2 from the minority party are seated. If your state only has 2 representatives, then they'd always be split unless one party gets more than 75% of the vote; in a state with 3, you'd only have 3-0 if one party got more than 83% of the vote, and so on.

[aparch]

Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

... IL-4 is among the most egregious examples. It's a ridiculous-looking jigsaw of Chicago neighborhoods that likely favor Democrats.
...

IL-4 was drawn up because lawmakers were told that there needed to be more Hispanic-Latino representation because of the population makeup of the City of Chicago. So, they combined the heavily Puerto Rican north side of I-290 with the heavily Mexican south side of I-290 into one represented district. So yes it favors Democrats, but it lumps two distinctly different groups into one representative area.

The gap in the middle is the 7th Congressional District and is much more African-American populated, and it also includes the central Loop area, River North, and South Loop into also just one representative district.

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

The easiest way to fix the electoral college for the legislative branch is to simply do a statewide primary for each party recording the same number of top vote getters as there are seats. Then hold a statewide popular vote and divy them up proportionally.

Gerrymandering dies there. Never have to worry about city or rural. Never have to worry about racial packing and cracking. Don’t have to worry about a few hundred seats throwing an entire state.

All my plan needs is an amendment to the constitution

Actually, couldn’t each state decide how it wants to do this?

[LynahFan]

The easiest way to fix the electoral college for the legislative branch is to simply do a statewide primary for each party recording the same number of top vote getters as there are seats. Then hold a statewide popular vote and divy them up proportionally.

Gerrymandering dies there. Never have to worry about city or rural. Never have to worry about racial packing and cracking. Don’t have to worry about a few hundred seats throwing an entire state.

All my plan needs is an amendment to the constitution

Actually, couldn’t each state decide how it wants to do this?

If I'm reading this correctly, that's basically what I posted a few minutes ago, but you added the primary as the means of setting the rank order, which is a great idea.

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

Dammit. Sorry. I didn’t read your whole post.

I read the first paragraph and typed my post up as a solution to your first paragraph. I see you solved that about 34 minutes before I did.

[Jimjamesak]

Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

I prefer the German method: Have directly elected Reps but add seats for parties based on their proportion of the total vote.

Either way the number of seats in the House needs to grow, 435 is ridiculously small for a country this size. It should be closer to 650.

[joecct]

The easiest way to fix the electoral college for the legislative branch is to simply do a statewide primary for each party recording the same number of top vote getters as there are seats. Then hold a statewide popular vote and divy them up proportionally.

Gerrymandering dies there. Never have to worry about city or rural. Never have to worry about racial packing and cracking. Don’t have to worry about a few hundred seats throwing an entire state.

All my plan needs is an amendment to the constitution

Actually, couldn’t each state decide how it wants to do this?

Each state decides on how its electors are chosen.

Try this -- vote for each elector. In my case, I'd vote for 8 individuals. The individuals then vote for a candidate for president.