
Death to the Gerrymander - rashkov
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/01/death_to_the_gerrymander_paul_smith_might_defeat_unconstitutional_redistricting.html
======
my_first_acct
Many HN readers live in California, so it may be worth mentioning that
redistricting in that state is handled by the independent California Citizens
Redistricting Commission [1]. The commission was put in place by a couple of
voter initiatives, which were opposed by many elements of the political
establishment. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the primary supporters of
the two initiatives [2][3]; I consider the CCRC to be one of Gov.
Schwarzenegger's most significant accomplishments.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Citizens_Redistrict...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Citizens_Redistricting_Commission)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_11_(200...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_11_\(2008\)#Donors_supporting_Prop_11)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_20_(201...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_20_\(2010\)#Supporters)

~~~
r00fus
Amusingly, it's possibly because of the CCRC that Democrats won a
supermajority in the CA assembly as CA has shifted even more blue since it's
been in effect.

~~~
Taek
Is this because of unfair districting or because a genuine supermajority of
citizens is Democratic?

~~~
bsder
Mostly genuine.

However, the "jungle primary" also has an effect. Since the top two vote
getters irrespective of party go to the general election, you can't just
squeak by a primary and then cruise to victory in a safe district (the Tea
Party tactic). The minority party gets to weigh in at the general, so if two
Republicans or two Democrats go to the general, the more moderate one is going
to likely pull more votes from the minority party.

This pulls people closer to center which tends to favor Democrats.

~~~
jacobolus
This conclusion seems implausible.

Can you give a specific example of a district where this effect was observed
in a real election? i.e. where the Republicans would have won a seat because
of a radical (of either party) winning a primary, but ended up losing the seat
because of the “jungle primary”.

~~~
euyyn
Irrespective of examples, which I don't know, what is incorrect in that
reasoning? And why is the conclusion implausible?

------
tunesmith
The thought experiment I've liked in the past is...

Say you have a 55/45 state, with 9 congressional districts. Roughly speaking,
what is most fair? A 5/4 district split? Or, each district being 55-45, i.e.
9/0?

If I'm reading it right, it sounds like the efficiency gap would mean that 5/4
would be more fair, but that would actually require drawing districts in a way
that pays attention to the political and demographic makeup of the geography.

I get that for many states, if the Democrats had the 55, then current
gerrymandering means that they might only get 2/7, or two out of the nine
candidates, which seems wildly off no matter how you look at it, but still, I
have trouble identifying the principle of what fair actually _is_. And I don't
like the answer of just arbitrarily picking a math formula that is used the
same way everywhere. Because, in the absence of a principle behind it, it
could be just as distorted. For instance, if 5/4 is more fair, then a
geographically blind districting program could very easily end up with similar
blended districts leading to a 9/0 state.

~~~
euyyn
In Spain many are proposing to get rid of districts altogether, because they
severely penalize parties that aren't the two biggest (except regionalistic
parties). And this is in a country where the system actually allows third
parties to get seats in Congress (even if harder) - the American system is
very very ill of bipartidism. Congress should be 1 person 1 vote, no matter
your political preference or where you live.

~~~
knz
New Zealand has Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) where you vote for a local
representative and also a party.

There are a fixed number of local representatives and the rest of the 120
available seats are made up by the total party vote. So if you won 10 seats
but 25% of the party vote you would have 10 representatives and 20 list/party
MP's.

It has also worked very well to give third parties more power and help keep
the two main parties closer to the political center.

------
brianolson
If we optimize districts to minimize the efficiency gap we're just
gerrymandering to a different measure. This is shoddy proportionality. We
could have proper Proportional Representation[1] via a big at-large election
using the Single Transferable Vote process.

We should either have locality based districts, or give up on districting and
have some other identity based constituency representation.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote)

~~~
marcoperaza
Proportional representation gives undue power to small parties, who can make
demands disproportional to their share of the vote in exchange for pushing
legislation past the 50% threshold (it's even worse in a parliamentary system,
where small parties are often king-makers).

The American system is more about representing the preferences of communities
than directly those of individuals. When you look at it like that, things like
the electoral college, the senate, and plurality voting make sense.

~~~
treebeard901
> The American system is more about representing the preferences of
> communities than directly those of individuals.

Increase the number of representatives to match the population growth. It
hasn't increased since 1911. Gerrymandering is a scaling problem.

~~~
spc476
Then you have another scaling problem. If you increase the number of
representatives to the level at the founding of the US (1 per 30,000 or so if
I recall) then you'll end up with the House of Representatives holding 11,000+
members.

~~~
sjwright
That sounds like a great idea. Mothball the south end of the Capitol Building;
let 11,000 representatives meet and vote online.

~~~
Taek
Or maybe acknowledge that 300M people is a lot to have under one rule of
government and split the country apart according to the most sensible cultural
borders.

~~~
sjwright
I reckon we start by letting Texas secede. Then we bundle up California +
Hawaii into its own little pacific paradise. Then we offer all the northern
border states to Canada. And offer New Mexico to Mexico...

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>Then we offer all the northern border states to Canada.

Living in New England, there are actually a fair number of people here who
dream of applying to join Canada or the EU if we could get free of the rest of
the USA.

------
stretchwithme
Why try to fix a system that denies most people the representative they
prefer?

We'd be better off if we used proportional representation.

Imagine a court case where all parties to the suit first must pick ONE lawyer
to represent all of their competing points of view. That'll work, won't it?

Like our representatives, lawyers would put a lot of effort into convincing
the parties that they are the right lawyer. And, once elected, ALL the power
is at the disposal of that lawyer. He controls the outcome. And he can start
collecting bribes.

Oh, he'll claim to represent ALL of the people.

~~~
simonh
> Why try to fix a system...

Because perfect really often is the enemy of the good. If a perfect system
isn't practically achievable, in the near term at least, is there really no
point in making any improvement at all? In any case sometimes the best route
to an ideal or near-ideal destinations is one step at a time.

~~~
stretchwithme
That's why I suggested a good system, rather than a perfect one.

Dozens of countries already use proportional representation.

~~~
simonh
Yes, but there's no appetite for a change of that magnitude in the US today.
But if PR is your goal, I think a more representative version of the current
system is more likely to lead us to that than an increasingly less
representative version of it through persistent creeping gerrymandering.

~~~
stretchwithme
And switching to proportional representation would help fix lobbyist control
of government, which is a huge problem.

Ending gerrymandering just changes who is going to serve the lobbyists.

~~~
stretchwithme
And the appetite for change goes up when there is something worth changing
for. Helping a few people in a few districts doesn't do much for most people.

------
itgoon
The Constitution allows for many more representatives. Why don't we bump up
that number, to say, 10,000 members in the HoR?

Logistical problems? Yes, there would be quite a few. As it is, any given
member has to suck up to moneyed interests, just to be able to afford to
become elected.

If any given rep only had to sway a few 10s of thousands, the barrier to entry
is much lower.

Positions which are considered "fringe" would have some say, and there would
be a lot more room for third parties.

I certainly think it would be a lot easier than some of the structural changes
often proposed.

~~~
ComputerGuru
There is more merit to this than initially meets the eye. It could be argued
that the democracy our founding fathers envisioned would, in fact, look like
that - just compare the lower house head count to the population of the time
versus the present ratio.

How much more connected to the government and better represented would you
feel when your representative is really just another bloke from your
neighborhood?

~~~
itgoon
Exactly! Trying to appeal to millions of people is difficult and expensive. A
candidate needs deep coffers, and lots of contacts.

Trying to appeal to those within a half mile or so is much more
straightforward. That's something that can be done with the help of your
neighbors.

------
randcraw
There have been algorithms and even software implementations for a while now
that fix or greatly equalize gerrymandered districts. Here's an article from
the July 2014 Wash Post on one such solution, with example maps:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/06/03/this-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/06/03/this-
computer-programmer-solved-gerrymandering-in-his-spare-time/)

------
Ericson2314
So many haters in this thread. I agree we should aim high, and I'd hate to be
the incrementalist in the room but—more math for the courts _and_ a solution
to a problem that, if successful, is likely to lead to solutions to more
problems? Hell yeah!

------
torpfactory
Let's have what I'd like to call double blind Gerrymandering:

\- States package demographic maps WITHOUT party affiliation and send to an
"independent commission" (whatever that means...) who does NOT open the maps
(preferably is not able to for technical reasons). These maps only include
only location of voters geographically. All geographic names have been
stripped from this record. Maybe we even have a method to obfuscate the
geometry of the maps but maintain the relationship between location and vote.
Idea is: anyone who is not very familiar with the maps and American politics
would not be able to tell what map they are looking at.

\- Send this package of information to some independent contractors chosen by
the commission. It would work best if these are people found living under a
rock who had no knowledge of American politics but were magically also well
educated in mathematics. These contractors would draw up the maps in some
'locality' based system and return them to the commission, who would forward
them on to the states.

\- The states have no way of knowing which state's information went to which
contractor as this information is 'lost' at the 'independent commission'. The
independent commission doesn't know which contract worked with which map so
they have no way of influencing the process.

\- We could also do plenty of more sensible things like Mixed Member
proportional or any number of other reasonable ideas. I like this one because
of how crazy it sounds...

~~~
barneygumble742
The fastest and laziest way of gerrymandering is by strictly using party
affiliation. One can correlate party affiliation with race/gender/household
income/county tax rates. At the state level, all this information is available
online to anyone so you may not get an exact number on party affiliation, you
can make a very accurate estimate and use that data to draw district lines.

For a true non-gerrymandered district lines, you only need the population and
make sure there's not a single gap between the districts.

------
failrate
I believe that a fairer method of districting would be to generate a Voronoi
graph where the size of each cell is based on population data. Each cell
should be centered around a population centroid and should contain
approximately the same number of citizens.

~~~
pzone
That doesn't necessarily solve the problem - you can still gerrymander quite a
lot by strategically placing the centroids. An effective solution has to
ensure the vote outcomes are not skewed. Simple geometrical constraints aren't
enough to guarantee this.

~~~
failrate
Centroid are defined by the data points that constitute them. You could only
manipulate them by moving people's physical location.

------
elihu
I'm confused by the description of the formula.

> This formula—called the “efficiency gap”—cites two types of “wasted votes”
> in the redistricting process: “lost votes” cast in favor of a defeated
> candidate, and “surplus votes” cast in favor of a winning candidate that
> weren’t actually necessary for the candidate’s victory. The efficiency gap
> is, in Stephanopoulos’ words, “the difference between the parties’
> respective wasted votes in an election, divided by the total number of votes
> cast.”

> When both Democrats and Republican waste roughly the same number of votes,
> the efficiency gap is near zero.

Say there's an election and the candidate from party A gets 51,000 votes and
the candidate for party B gets 49,000 votes. So, party B had 49,000 wasted
votes (their candidate didn't win), while party A had 1,999 wasted votes (they
weren't necessary to win).

So, we calculate the efficiency gap as (49000-1999)/100000, or 47.001%. That's
really high, but there's not necessarily any gerrymandering going on.
Presumably when a state has a lot of races, each party will win some and lose
some, so the efficiency gap won't be so heavily skewed. However, supposing you
had ten districts that were completely homogeneous and one party won all ten
by a narrow margin, the efficiency gap would be the same very high value of
47.001%. Is it fair to call that an example of gerrymandering? If we labelled
it as a result of unconstitutional gerrymandering, is that kind of like saying
the voters the wrong way? Can there be false positives where the efficiency
gap is high without gerrymandering?

Or am I just misunderstanding the description of the formula?

~~~
quanticle
The process is poorly described. The Brennan Center [1] does a better job. The
key point in the efficiency gap is that you don't calculate district by
district. You calculate the efficiency gap for all of the districts in a
state. Yes, if a single party won all districts by a 2% margin, it would be
gerrymandering. It's not statistically believable for a party to win that many
districts "by chance", especially if the vote margins are that narrow in each
district. If Party A wins District 1 by 2%, I'd expect Party B to win District
2, etc. If Party A wins Districts 1-100 by 2%, then yes, I'd strongly suspect
gerrymandering.

[1]: [https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legal-
work...](https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legal-
work/How_the_Efficiency_Gap_Standard_Works.pdf)

------
lkrubner
All of the problems with gerrymandering can be solved by eliminating districts
and holding all elections at the national level.

As a thought experiment, assume a society that is ruled by a legislature of 29
people. Each year, society votes and elects a single individual, who then
serves for 29 years. One person elected per year for 29 years gives you a
legislature of 29 people. If all local, city, and regional voting districts
are abolished (the districts still exist, but these are appointed positions,
not elected) the public, and the media, are able to focus their energy on
choosing the one best person each year. All elected leaders face a strict term
limit of one term.

Advantages of the system:

1.) leaders serve long enough that they can enact meaningful reform. They can
also carry out necessary, but unpopular, policies, without facing immediate
backlash from the people.

2.) There are no districts, therefore there is no gerrymandering.

3.) There are no decisive elections. Unlike Germany in 1933 or the USA in
2016, there are no elections in which it feels like the entire regime has
changed all at once. All change is gradual, and it happens at the same pace
every year.

4.) Society finally gets the true benefits of the rule of law, which is
freedom from arbitrary changes. No government made of mortal flesh can ever be
ensured to be wise, so hoping for wisdom is not realistic, but the rule of law
can offer us stability and freedom from arbitrary government.

Some of these ideas go back to Plato. His Council Of Wisdom was to be made of
those leaders who would serve forever. Considering how much the West seems to
admire Plato, it is odd that no Western nation has ever attempted to implement
anything like his ideas.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>3.) There are no decisive elections. Unlike Germany in 1933 or the USA in
2016, there are no elections in which it feels like the entire regime has
changed all at once. All change is gradual, and it happens at the same pace
every year.

The funny thing is, USA 2016 _didn 't_ change everything at once. The
Republicans already held Congress, and actually _lost_ a few House and Senate
seats. They unexpectedly gained the Presidency, but their seeming total power
now comes _only_ from their extreme willingness to use procedural tactics that
other Americans regard as "bad sport". This turned a Presidential upset into a
Presidential upset _plus_ a free seat on the Supreme Court, similarly to how
it turned the midterms in 2010 from a midterm election in which the opposition
party usually gains seats into a semi-permanent Republican legislative
majority throughout the 2010s (thanks to the gerrymandering described in TFA).

------
tom_mellior
From the article: "The difficulty in curbing partisan gerrymandering has not
been in convincing judges that the practice is unconstitutional—the Supreme
Court has found that it is" where the part "the Supreme Court has found that
it is" is a link that goes to this case:
[https://www.oyez.org/cases/1985/84-1244](https://www.oyez.org/cases/1985/84-1244)

That page then summarizes the Supreme Court case as follows:

    
    
        Question
        
        Did Indiana's 1981 state apportionment violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
        
        Conclusion
        
        No. [...]
    

So... Am I misunderstanding something, or is the article's claim completely
wrong? In which case, I'd guess that its optimism is unfounded.

~~~
epmaybe
I think they are trying to make the point that the specific ruling was that
the state apportionment itself was fine, but that "The Court also ruled that
political gerrymandering claims were properly justiciable under the Equal
Protection Clause, noting that judicially manageable standards could be
discerned and applied in such cases."

So I think they (not a legal scholar by any means) are saying that if the case
is about gerrymandering specifically then they would be able to do something
about it.

------
dragonwriter
Gerrymandering is just one way the fundamental representation problem with
single-member FPTP districts manifests. Eliminating gerrymandering doesn't
eliminate the fundamental problem, it just makes it a little more opaque the
particular manner in which it will manifest.

~~~
r00fus
It's a huge piece of the problem. Better voting systems don't establish
themselves, you have to bootstrap, and that's using the FPTP process to vote
in folks who institute change and get us to IRV or Condorcet.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Better voting systems don't establish themselves, you have to bootstrap, and
> that's using the FPTP process to vote in folks who institute change and get
> us to IRV or Condorcet.

No, it's bypassing offices elected by FPTP by using the citizen initiative
process in the states, and proving reforms there. (And the representation
problem is fundamental to single-member districts, so IRV and Condorcet aren't
solutions.)

~~~
r00fus
Explain to me why IRV and Condorcet don't help with single-winner outcomes.

The main problem with FPTP is the 3rd party spoiler, which both approval-based
voting systems address.

------
ALee
I had the opportunity to have lunch with a lead pollster at the Cook Political
Report - I asked him whether he thought redistricting reform could decrease
partisanship. He pointed to the Senate as a reason that partisanship still
continues. The one thing that he said would make the biggest political impact
might actual be open primary (top two vote getters move on to the general,
regardless of party) - which would moderate folks. I'm still a believer in
gerrymandering reform, but the tendrils of self-segregation run deep and
gerrymandering reform is just one weapon against the hydra of partisanship.

------
minnesotastyle
I like the idea of a mathematical formula for determining politicization of
redistricting. I'm not sure if SCOTUS would really impose a mathematical limit
to wasted vote efficiency but maybe we could use more math and technocratic
solutions to political problems!

------
arca_vorago
I think besides the failure of the system and the people to keep the
politicians in check for gerrymandering, the main issue is that the
districting system hasn't done a good job of keeping up with population
growth. Therefor my proposed solution would be to increase representation and
more districts, albeit smaller ones.

The main problem with this I foresee is lack of room on Capitol Hill, but
perhaps congress really doesn't need to be on Capitol Hill considering modern
technology. With the added Benefit that Kstreet would have a much higher
barrier to entry this way, and through a more decentralized structure, we
would end up with a more egalitarian system.

------
rmc
Gerrymandering was used in Northern Ireland for a long time, though usually to
favour one side.

After a slow burning civil war in the late 20th century, they is now a
complicated voting and parliamentary system, with many memeber constituancies.

------
huntersmith
More info from the writer, Mark Joseph Stern ->
[http://share.sparemin.com/recording-6618](http://share.sparemin.com/recording-6618)

------
ktRolster
As long as people vote based primarily based on party, there will always be
gerrymandering.

~~~
quadrangle
All you need is an objective requirement for how districts are determined.
Besides, gerrymandering could happen with just ideological differences in the
total absence of parties.

~~~
ktRolster
The person who decides which 'objective' requirement get used will win.

~~~
quadrangle
Well, so the objective requirement must be decided by consensus of a group of
people representing a wide range of interests.

------
ImTalking
Gerrymandering would be a non-issue if voting was mandatory.

~~~
Others
Can you explain why you believe that mandatory voting would solve
Gerrymandering? I've given it a cursory thought, and it doesn't seem
obvious...

~~~
ImTalking
Because if everyone voted, it would be prohibitively expensive to gerrymander
down to small areas such as individual city-blocks. You may have a generally
Republican area but a small area/block within would be Democrat because of
(say) a respected church leader, for example.

Also, older people vote at much higher percentages than the young and are
usually much more settled. If everyone voted, then gerrymandering would have
to deal with a population much more in-flux, and the partisan areas would be
much harder to identify and maintain.

If you had 1,000 people voting, it would be very easy to gerrymander; 330M
people not so much.

~~~
DannyBee
"Because if everyone voted, it would be prohibitively expensive to gerrymander
down to small areas such as individual city-blocks. "

Citation needed.

This is honestly a pretty trivial ILP problem.

Certainly you realize they already know each individual voter's political
affiliation if they've declared one or votedin primaries? The data set also
includes their address,etc.

I've seen the data they used.

Heck, we were the only ones who asked the data providers to not include
people's names or other PII (we just wanted to map street segments to
political districts), and they pretty much laughed and said nobody had asked
for that before.

