

Engineer's Solution: Neutral Redistricting so Reelection is Less Assured - joheyu
http://rangevoting.org/SplitLR.html

======
acheron
Much of the so-called "gerrymandering" is required by the VRA, which this
proposal would certainly violate.
[http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/10/15/how_mic...](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/10/15/how_mich_rebuts_redistrictingpolarization_claims_120323.html)

 _This looks like a terrible gerrymander. But there is actually something of a
method to this madness. The GOP actually didn’t have much choice but to pack
voters into Detroit- and Flint-based districts. Detroit has had two African-
American-majority districts since the 1960s, and Republicans were probably
required under the Voting Rights Act to retain both of them.

This was no easy task. The 13th and 14th districts had both seen their
African-American populations drop below 60 percent, and both had suffered
severe population losses in the 2000s, requiring them to take on quite a few
additional citizens. Making matters worse, there were barely enough African-
Americans in all of Wayne County to create two African-American-majority
districts entirely within that county’s borders.

Since it was impossible (and possibly unconstitutional) to draw lines to make
sure every African-American in the county was in the minority-majority
district, redistricters needed to add those voters from Oakland County, which
has a growing African-American population. This is actually the source of the
odd appendage we see jutting northward from Detroit; it crosses Oakland County
to take in heavily minority Pontiac. Even with all this, both districts are
only 56 percent African-American and the 14th still elected a white Democrat
over an African-American incumbent in the 2012 primaries.

The neighboring districts were then all pushed toward Republicans, as the most
loyal Democratic constituents were removed to comply with the VRA. Even a
Democratic legislature would have drawn something akin to these districts;
there just aren’t many other options. No neighboring district is left with an
African-American population in excess of 11 percent under this map, suggesting
that the heavily African-American precincts in the state were pretty well
gobbled up._

~~~
jskonhovd
Proportional Representation is a much better way to give representation to
minority groups.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_Representation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_Representation)

~~~
pionar
Nope. In the US, we don't vote for parties, we vote for individual people.
Political parties are not the solution. The FPTP system we have is a
reflection of the framers' desire to avoid parties. Unfortunately, in the 200+
years since, parties are now the norm.

~~~
adeaver
We are _suppose_ to vote for people, sadly far too many people vote along
party lines regardless of the qualities of the actual people involved.

~~~
wadetandy
That is still different than voting for a party. In proportional
representation you would cast your ballot for e.g. The Democratic Party. If
they got 54% of the vote, they would get to then appoint 54% of the
representation for that district. In this way, a very heavily Tea Party
district would still have representation for the democratic minority, just
less.

~~~
dragonwriter
> In proportional representation you would cast your ballot for e.g. The
> Democratic Party.

You are confusing "proportional representation" (which is a continuous-valued
property of many election systems) with "party list proportional" which is a
particular election system for achieving a high value of proportional
representation.

Notably, Single Transferrable Vote is a system in which people vote for
candidates as they do in FPTP elections (except using preference ballots), but
which is designed to acheive proportional representation.

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Lendal
In my city there is a river which roughly splits it into two equal halves. You
identify yourself by which side of the river you live on. But this algorithm
completely ignores this natural division and instead uses an arbitrarily
angled line which doesn't take into account the people who live there and how
they wish to be naturally divided.

Doomed to fail.

~~~
peteretep
That's sort of the point. The problem it's trying to solve is election of
extremist representatives with little incentive to pander to both (all three?)
sides of their electors.

~~~
loumf
Rather than just drawing lines, the areas should be built up from the census
blocks (or some similar thing -- zipcodes, e.g.). It should also try to keep
entire small towns together.

This would tend to make areas that make more sense. They would have roughly
the same shape, but people living at the boundaries would be more "correct".

~~~
asmithmd1
I like these maps:

[http://commoncensus.org/maps.php#regional_maps](http://commoncensus.org/maps.php#regional_maps)

Drawn by answers to the question: "What city has the most influence over the
area where you live"

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loumf
Another -- also "never going to happen" solution is to just grow the House. It
used to grow with population and then we stopped. If districts were smaller,
it would be easier to make them less gerrymandered and pseudo-proportional
representation falls out as a side-effect.

~~~
mattlutze
At this point they may need to use RFK stadium for floor votes, if we were for
example to return to the population density per rep that existed before the
growth stopped. Using Wikipedia's numbers, we'd have just over 1,050 reps if
we used the same density as 1929 when it was capped.

~~~
mattlutze
And, at roughly original numbers, ~7,400 representatives.

~~~
stevekinney
That's a lot of people to filibuster.

~~~
Jtsummers
Fortunately the House doesn't have filibusters anymore.

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binarymax
Definitely interesting, but there is an unfortunate side effect with the
algorithm that tends to split up cities. Cities often have a vested interest
as a whole - so having 2 or more reps per city as opposed to 1 is going to
cause strife.

~~~
aestra
New York City has no fewer than 12 congressional districts. Everything is just
fine.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%27s_congressional_dist...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%27s_congressional_districts)

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cschmidt
That reminds me of a paper published in the journal Operations Research.

The Geo-Graph in Practice: Creating United States Congressional Districts from
Census Blocks

[http://cho.pol.illinois.edu/wendy/papers/geographs.pdf](http://cho.pol.illinois.edu/wendy/papers/geographs.pdf)
[pdf file, obviously]

It was a finalist for a best paper award on public service in OR.

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kens
A serious question: why is it an inherently good thing for reelection to be
less assured? I'd think that in many "natural" districts, you'd either have a
clear tilt in the population, or a popular politician who always gets
reelected because they do a good job and people like them. (I agree that crazy
gerrymandering is a problem, but I often see this attitude that there's
something wrong if a district isn't competitive.)

~~~
IgorPartola
Because the congress has a 90% reelection rate [1] and a 10% approval rate
[2]. In short, the tea party members can go nuts and destroy parts of the
government, yet be sure they will still get elected.

[1]
[http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php](http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php)

[2] [http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/poll-republicans-
are-%E2%80...](http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/poll-republicans-
are-%E2%80%98almost-all%E2%80%99)

~~~
humanrebar
Congress was as unpopular and as full of bad incumbents before the tea party
organized.

Also, the tea party republicans have all been reelected recently, so they
can't possibly be caused by the high reelection rate. In fact, you would
probably see more of them if the advantages of incumbency were diminished.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Congress was as unpopular and as full of bad incumbents before the tea party
> organized.

No, it wasn't. Whatever you think about the opinion claim ("as full of bad
incumbents") the fact claim ("as unpopular") is wrong: Congress' current
approval ratings are at the lowest since approval of Congress has been
tracked.

> Also, the tea party republicans have all been reelected recently, so they
> can't possibly be caused by the high reelection rate.

Assuming that you mean "first elected" when you say "reelected", which is the
only way this claim even makes sense, then, yes, that's true. What they are a
in part a product of is not "the reelection rate", per se, but a particular
factor which _also_ contributes to the reelection rate, specifically,
_districts in which there is no substantial party competition_.

These districts mean that a committed faction of the dominant party, even if
it is not itself an overall majority faction, can keep a candidate in office
quite easily.

~~~
humanrebar
Sorry. I mistyped. I did mean "first elected".

A better (also less inflammatory) case would exclude condemning the tea party
for their political views and tactics and include mentioning politicians like
Tom Delay, Duke Cunningham, William Jefferson, Jesse Jackson Jr., and Charlie
Rangel who were all convicted or censured for corrupt behavior. Many of them
subsequently won primary or general election races!

I actually agree that incumbency is probably too big of an advantage,
especially in primary races, but I think the recent primary success of tea
party republicans undermines that argument if anything.

EDIT: Regarding popularity, since the 9/11 fervor wore off, congressional
approval has been maybe 25% _at best_. The tea party didn't exactly break
anything that wasn't broken already.

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exo762
What about changing voting system from FPTP to something that actually makes
sense and does not produce lame two party system?

~~~
DennisP
That's the main topic of the site OP linked to.
[http://rangevoting.org/](http://rangevoting.org/)

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rlpb
Why must districts be geographical in nature? I don't identify myself with
where I live. I identify myself with the communities of which I am a member,
and these span much larger areas.

To me, geographical districts have the effect of filtering out like-minded
people. For example: hackers don't get a voice (except perhaps in the Bay
area), since they are scattered all over.

Why must this be so?

~~~
andrewljohnson
Because it enables federated, but different, freedoms. How can you move to
avoid communities and laws you don't like, if they are not geographically
disparate?

~~~
rlpb
In general, I cannot move to avoid laws I don't like, except by leaving the
country (or state). The laws that bother me are not local in nature.

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coldcode
Makes sense which is why it will never happen.

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jccooper
That's nice, but is clearly illegal. The Voting Rights Act basically requires
safe minority districts. Elegance of district lines is a secondary (or less)
consideration. Might work for particular large homogenous areas, if you can
find some.

~~~
gte910h
VRA is just a law, like this would be.

VRA is used in court challenges to overturn STATE redistricting efforts, but
isn't inherently more powerful than any other federal law when "head to head".
This law would change/supersede parts of it.

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brianolson
Alternative algorithmic redistricting optimizes for compactness:
[http://bdistricting.com/2010/](http://bdistricting.com/2010/)

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jskonhovd
This is absolutely a better method that the current process of gerrymandering.
Texas, Illinois, Florida, and California are awful.

~~~
msrpotus
California has nonpartisan redistricting already. Just because it doesn't look
good on a map doesn't mean it isn't fair.

~~~
jskonhovd
Ok. Yeah, you guys got in recently.

[http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/commission.html](http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/commission.html)

