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Gerrymandering. Update: Democrats won the popular vote for the Senate, House, and Presidency, but only control one of those. (1 Viewer)

People talk about "code" or "algorithm" like it's some kind of magic bullet of impartiality.

Not that it matters.  This will never happen.

 
dschuler said:
Again, that's not any different than what we have now, you aren't specific at all except you think a computer will solve the worlds problems.  The fact of the matter is that a computer will only do what it is programmed to do, and will always have a bias based off the way it was programmed.  One party will always say the program violates the law based off of how many districts they will win/lose.  
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Don't let perfect get in the way of very good.  

Is a system with less gerrymandering better than the system we have now, where multiple states are getting their maps rejected because they are too racist?

Have you studied how other countries have addressed gerrymandering?  How some have minimized it or eliminated it completely?

 
jonessed said:
People talk about "code" or "algorithm" like it's some kind of magic bullet of impartiality.

Not that it matters.  This will never happen.
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All that it takes for it to happen is for a party in power to be willing to trade away a little power in exchange for better governance.  I know it sounds like a stretch but I believe it can be done.

 
fatguyinalittlecoat said:
All that it takes for it to happen is for a party in power to be willing to trade away a little power in exchange for better governance.  I know it sounds like a stretch but I believe it can be done.
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It would have to heavily involve both parties putting politics aside and cooperating on what would be a long, controversial process.

I think the odds are pretty much nil that it happens in our lifetime.

 
jonessed said:
People talk about "code" or "algorithm" like it's some kind of magic bullet of impartiality.

Not that it matters.  This will never happen.
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Well, that's one extreme.  The other I hear frequently is the talk of it being impossible to do with a computer because of the person writing the code and that the algorithm is destine to be completely partisan.

Reality is, the answer is in the middle.  But I do agree that it's not going to happen, at least soon.  The GOP has way more to lose than the Dems in redrawing.  They will want to keep the process as is.  I've never understood why they don't just have scaled representation.  The larger the district gets, the more reps it gets.  How about a group overseen by the SC independent of the actual politicians doing the drawing?  Limiting the length of the district line / making it required that the district be made of one contiguous line etc.  All these sorts of things would blow up a ton of the obviously flawed districts.  Hell, make a blanket statement that a district can be no larger than X square miles and no less than Y square miles and must be contiguous.  That seems to be the easiest way to do it.

 
The Commish said:
Well, that's one extreme.  The other I hear frequently is the talk of it being impossible to do with a computer because of the person writing the code and that the algorithm is destine to be completely partisan.

Reality is, the answer is in the middle.  But I do agree that it's not going to happen, at least soon.  The GOP has way more to lose than the Dems in redrawing.  They will want to keep the process as is.  I've never understood why they don't just have scaled representation.  The larger the district gets, the more reps it gets.  How about a group overseen by the SC independent of the actual politicians doing the drawing?  Limiting the length of the district line / making it required that the district be made of one contiguous line etc.  All these sorts of things would blow up a ton of the obviously flawed districts.  Hell, make a blanket statement that a district can be no larger than X square miles and no less than Y square miles and must be contiguous.  That seems to be the easiest way to do it.
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They have more to lose now because they had big cards to play the last time the districts were drawn.  That will change.

I'm not worried about biased developers.  They will do what they are asked to.  The process will be created and implemented through laws written by politicians though.  I don't think anything simple will come out of that process.  Nor do I think they will be able to resist the temptation of screwing with the data and/or data collection processes.

 
Smith replies that the nation is on the cusp of a “more serious problem as gerrymandering becomes more sophisticated with computers and data analytics and an electorate that’s very polarized and more predictable than it’s ever been before.”

“If you let this go,” Smith continues, “if you say … we’re not going to have a judicial remedy for this problem, in 2020, you’re going to have a festival of copycat gerrymandering the likes of which this country has never seen.”
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This is a very good point.

 
How has this developed into a partisan issue? Is it simply that during last census when lines were redrawn, republicans controlled most of the states? 

 
I get why (some) politicians would be ok with this. It goes along with my belief that must of them enjoy their power, don't want to give it up, and will move ethics to the side to continue to stay in power. But why would a regular citizen think this is ok? Are there regular people, not political activists, that think this is a good idea?

 
Polish Hammer said:
I get why (some) politicians would be ok with this. It goes along with my belief that must of them enjoy their power, don't want to give it up, and will move ethics to the side to continue to stay in power. But why would a regular citizen think this is ok? Are there regular people, not political activists, that think this is a good idea?
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In theory, it's a great way to ensure a minority group in several close voting districts instead get to have a voice by being drawn together in one district and be a majority. 

 
I don't get this - regardless of who draws the districts, there will always be partisanship and bias in the maps.  You think the court can draw districts without interjecting their own political bias?  We have judges here in WI that are so far left the Communist Party won't even have them.

 
Polish Hammer said:
I get why (some) politicians would be ok with this. It goes along with my belief that must of them enjoy their power, don't want to give it up, and will move ethics to the side to continue to stay in power. But why would a regular citizen think this is ok? Are there regular people, not political activists, that think this is a good idea?
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won't admit that no.  but when they're party is in power, they come up with excuses as to why it's not practical to fix.

 
Drawing districts so that one political party is basically obsolete is wrong no matter who does it. 

 
MaxThreshold said:
I don't get this - regardless of who draws the districts, there will always be partisanship and bias in the maps.  You think the court can draw districts without interjecting their own political bias?  We have judges here in WI that are so far left the Communist Party won't even have them.
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Pretty simple to say "divide my state into X equally sized (by land size, population, whatever) districts" and be done with it.  :shrug:  

And if insists on holding on to this falsehood, it's simple to get 10 members of a committee (split evenly among D, R, I) and make them draw the lines that they agree upon.  

 
The Commish said:
Pretty simple to say "divide my state into X equally sized (by land size, population, whatever) districts" and be done with it.  :shrug:  

And if insists on holding on to this falsehood, it's simple to get 10 members of a committee (split evenly among D, R, I) and make them draw the lines that they agree upon.  
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The problem with that is that districts must be also be drawn to also include/factor race.  Pretty sure the SCOTUS ruled on that.

 
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MaxThreshold said:
The problem with that is that districts must be also be drawn to also include/factor race.  Pretty sure the SCOTUS ruled on that.
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I'd like a link on this.  I know that there are rules against intentionally drawing lines based on race.  That wouldn't be the case in a scenario like the one I described.  The driving factor would be something like square miles or some such.

 
The Commish said:
I'd like a link on this.  I know that there are rules against intentionally drawing lines based on race.  That wouldn't be the case in a scenario like the one I described.  The driving factor would be something like square miles or some such.
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I'm trying to find the article I read last week.  I'll post it once I find it.

 
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The Commish said:
I'd like a link on this.  I know that there are rules against intentionally drawing lines based on race.  That wouldn't be the case in a scenario like the one I described.  The driving factor would be something like square miles or some such.
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I couldn't find the exact article I was reading, but basically I think it said redistricting must comply with the Voting Rights Act.  So that means the "divide my state into X equally sized (by land size, population, whatever) districts" would not work since redistricting maps must take race (minorities) into account.  It shouldn't be the predominant factor, but it must be a factor.

 
MaxThreshold said:
I don't get this - regardless of who draws the districts, there will always be partisanship and bias in the maps.  You think the court can draw districts without interjecting their own political bias?  We have judges here in WI that are so far left the Communist Party won't even have them.
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So what would be your solution?

 
The Commish said:
Pretty simple to say "divide my state into X equally sized (by land size, population, whatever) districts" and be done with it.  :shrug:  
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I think the states are all divided into X equally sized (by population) districts already. They're still terribly gerrymandered, so we're not really done with it.

 
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Maurile Tremblay said:
I think the states are all divided into X equally sized (by population) districts already. They're still terribly gerrymandered, so we're not really done with it.
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Part of the "size" equation would be literal shape of the district...sorry that wasn't clear.  Devil's always in the details I know.

 
MaxThreshold said:
I couldn't find the exact article I was reading, but basically I think it said redistricting must comply with the Voting Rights Act.  So that means the "divide my state into X equally sized (by land size, population, whatever) districts" would not work since redistricting maps must take race (minorities) into account.  It shouldn't be the predominant factor, but it must be a factor.
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It's going to be virtually impossible to gerrymander by race without simultaneously gerrymandering by partisan affiliation.  If you do one, you're going to have to do the other, and if you forbid one you're going to have to forbid the other too.  

 
The Commish said:
Part of the "size" equation would be literal shape of the district...sorry that wasn't clear.  Devil's always in the details I know.
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I might be misunderstanding, but I don't think districts of similar size population-wise can be of similar size area-wise since population density isn't uniform.

 
MaxThreshold said:
I couldn't find the exact article I was reading, but basically I think it said redistricting must comply with the Voting Rights Act.  So that means the "divide my state into X equally sized (by land size, population, whatever) districts" would not work since redistricting maps must take race (minorities) into account.  It shouldn't be the predominant factor, but it must be a factor.
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After reading a bit...found this.  This what you're talking about?

Is it prohibited to draw majority-minority districts?

No. Over 30 years ago the Supreme Court held that jurisdictions are free to draw majority-minority election districts that follow traditional, non-racial districting considerations, such as geographic compactness and keeping communities of interest together. Later Supreme Court decisions have held that drawing majority-minority districts may be required to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act.

While it remains legally permissible for jurisdictions to take race into account when drawing election districts, the Supreme Court has held that the Constitution requires a strong justification if racial considerations predominate over traditional districting principles. One such justification may be the need to remedy a violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. While such a remedy may include election district boundaries that compromise traditional districting principles, such districts must be drawn where the Section 2 violation occurs and must not compromise traditional principles more than is necessary to remedy the violation.
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Maurile Tremblay said:
I might be misunderstanding, but I don't think districts of similar size population-wise can be of similar size area-wise since population density isn't uniform.
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I was thinking more about the contiguous linear miles of a district's border.  And as we talk about this I know a snag in the past has been this concept of "communities of interest" and honestly, I've never understood it.  On it's face I suppose it makes sense to keep next door neighbors, or neighborhoods or whatever all part of the same district, but if I think about it more, I'm not sure it does.  If I lived in a huge community of several large neighborhoods that felt similar, wouldn't I want the potential to affect numerous districts instead of lumping them all together and limiting them to impact just one district?

 
Rewatched the John Oliver piece on this and found it fascinating.  I don’t have any solutions but very interested in the topic. 

In case you haven’t seen it

https://youtu.be/A-4dIImaodQ

I need to read the thread but I’m convinced this can be solved programmatically AFTER you reach agreements on the inputs (which don’t need to be political but obviously would be) - seems obvious you could strip that out though as long as people are honest about wanting it to be fair.

 
AAABatteries said:
Rewatched the John Oliver piece on this and found it fascinating.  I don’t have any solutions but very interested in the topic. 

In case you haven’t seen it

https://youtu.be/A-4dIImaodQ

I need to read the thread but I’m convinced this can be solved programmatically AFTER you reach agreements on the inputs (which don’t need to be political but obviously would be) - seems obvious you could strip that out though as long as people are honest about wanting it to be fair.
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I don't have a problem with governments wanting to keep districts culturally homogeneous, but having districts with massive population disparities seems anti-democratic to me.  Does anyone see a benefit to that?

 
A panel of federal judges struck down North Carolina’s congressional map on Tuesday, declaring it unconstitutionally gerrymandered and demanding that the Republican-controlled General Assembly redraw district lines before this year’s midterm elections.

The ruling was the first time that a federal court had blocked a congressional map because the judges believed it to be a partisan gerrymander, 
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