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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)

I can't think of a single "benefit" from a constituent perspective.  For the parties?  Yeah...helps them keep their jobs.  That's about it.  It needs to go away.

ger·ry·man·der

ˈjerēˌmandər/

verb

gerund or present participle: gerrymandering

manipulate the boundaries of (an electoral constituency) so as to favor one party or class.

achieve (a result) by manipulating the boundaries of an electoral constituency.

"a total freedom to gerrymander the results they want"

 
Hilts said:
I'm not sure how you would re-draw districts but it needs to be done in many areas. 
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Nobody wants to hear this but the way to do it is either by cohesive regions within states (SE Acadiana and NO and its northshore is a real easy one to picture here in LA)... or by being willing to abandon the idea of minority represented minority-majority districts, which most Dems are not willing to do, and it's really the same thing. The GOP is very happy to have the Maxine Waters and Cedric Richmonds representing urban areas while the suburban and extra-urban areas are left free of block, large Dem precincts. Something has to give if people want to change the system. But they really don't.

 
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SaintsInDome2006 said:
Nobody wants to hear this but the way to do it is either by cohesive regions within states (SE Acadiana and NO and its northshore is a real easy one to picture here in LA)... or by being willing to abandon the idea of minority represented minority-majority districts, which most Dems are not willing to do, and it's really the same thing. The GOP is very happy to have the Maxine Waters and Cedric Richmonds representing urban areas while the suburban and extra-urban areas are left free of block, large Dem precincts. Something has to give if people want to change the system. But they really don't.
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Politicians talk a good game but you're right - they don't really want to redraw their districts to make things fair.

 
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NCCommish said:
Uninvolved computer geeks who write algorithms. 
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Boom!  That's me!

ETA: Although, I work with some "computer nerds" who are so far left Sean Penn and Michael Moore would call them "the crazy left".  Nowhere near evenly balanced like I am. 

 
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MaxThreshold said:
Sure.  Who gets to write the algorithms?  I'll take a crack at it!
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Therein lies the rub. I imagine computer nerds but they still have to work within whatever criteria they're given. Who does that? Judges? Committees?

Even with that, there are actual positives of gerrymandering. At least in theory. You can have a group of people who would otherwise be ignored being a minority in several districts instead have a voice of they're concentrated in one district. 

 
The effect of gerrymandering are minimal.  The way populations are distributed will naturally favor the GOP.  So much of the Democratic voter base is highly concentrated in large cities where they can win those lopsided races. Democrats have more to gain by gerrymandering tactics by cutting out pieces of cities and including rural areas with them.  

 
I think we should start distinguishing in this subforum between the following 2 types of issues:

1. Issues that can be resolved.

2. Issues that might be fun to talk about, but which will not be resolved in the foreseeable future.

This issue is clearly a case of #2. Whatever you feelings are about it, nothing is going to happen.

 
MaxThreshold said:
Sure.  Who gets to write the algorithms?  I'll take a crack at it!
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One suggestion I've seen is to minimize the sum of the squares of the circumferences of all the districts that evenly divide a state's population into appropriately sized sections. There will probably be a unique solution for each state, but if there's more than one, roll some dice to select one at random.

That seems like a rule that is so objectively apolitical and impossible to game that even politicians might not be able to come up with a rational-sounding reason to oppose it. (And it completely avoids districts with screwy shapes that just look wrong.)

 
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Hilts said:
North Carolina given deadline after violating equal protection clause.

Wisconsin case heading to The Supreme Court.

The downside of data.

Figure we need a good gerrymandering thread. I think there are benefits to it but it's clearly being abused. I'm not sure how you would re-draw districts but it needs to be done in many areas. 
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One interesting thing I learned following the Wisconsin case  - the last time the SCOTUS was asked to review a gerrymandering case - a case from Pennsylvania in 2004 - a majority of the justices (Scalia, O'Connor, Thomas, Kennedy and Rehnquist) blocked the court from hearing the case on the basis that, "courts should never review partisan-gerrymandering claims, because it is too hard to come up with a manageable test to determine when the role of politics in redistricting is too influential."  That seems like an odd reason to not hear a case, but I didn't read too far into it. In any event, Kennedy ruled differently for the current case.

As several commentators have noted, it probably bodes poorly for the law's opponents that the justices granted Wisconsin's request for a stay of the state court's order requiring the state to draw new maps.

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/16A1149-Gill-v.-Whitford-Order.pdf

 
timschochet said:
I think we should start distinguishing in this subforum between the following 2 types of issues:

1. Issues that can be resolved.

2. Issues that might be fun to talk about, but which will not be resolved in the foreseeable future.

This issue is clearly a case of #2. Whatever you feelings are about it, nothing is going to happen.
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If the Supreme Court rules the way they should in regards to the current case then things will change. Lines shouldn't be drawn by one party . It should be a group from both sides for "fairness".. Heck, grab 10 from the  nolabels group.

What that fairness is I can't say. But the way some dristricts are drawn in Texas & Wisconsin is :loco: and needs to be changed.

 
CletiusMaximus said:
Scotusblog published a short summary of the Wisconsin gerrymandering case, set for argument on October 3.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/08/justices-tackle-partisan-gerrymandering-plain-english/

Sidenote - the lead plaintiff William Whitford was my contracts professor in law school.
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Interesting. Does the state really have a chance to prevail on the standing issue?  That one seems a little ridiculous.  The plaintiff has to be from a district where he's actually in the minority?

 
jon_mx said:
The effect of gerrymandering are minimal.  The way populations are distributed will naturally favor the GOP.  So much of the Democratic voter base is highly concentrated in large cities where they can win those lopsided races. Democrats have more to gain by gerrymandering tactics by cutting out pieces of cities and including rural areas with them.  
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:lol:

 
jon_mx said:
The effect of gerrymandering are minimal.  The way populations are distributed will naturally favor the GOP.  So much of the Democratic voter base is highly concentrated in large cities where they can win those lopsided races. Democrats have more to gain by gerrymandering tactics by cutting out pieces of cities and including rural areas with them.  
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This is actually pretty true. The left self gerrymanders. We largely live in urban areas. It's been pointed out many times that if you want to truly effect elections more on the left need to move to the country. As it is their votes are easily kept to one or two districts in most states. Now racial gerrymandering is something different than that though and that is what we are seeing on a large scale from the GOP. Minority folks do live in the country and the way lines are drawn and laws are enacted to suppress that vote is a problem.

 
NCCommish said:
This is actually pretty true. The left self gerrymanders. We largely live in urban areas. It's been pointed out many times that if you want to truly effect elections more on the left need to move to the country. As it is their votes are easily kept to one or two districts in most states. Now racial gerrymandering is something different than that though and that is what we are seeing on a large scale from the GOP. Minority folks do live in the country and the way lines are drawn and laws are enacted to suppress that vote is a problem.
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 https://pjmedia.com/zombie/2010/11/11/the-top-ten-most-gerrymandered-congressional-districts-in-the-united-states/1/

It's not like all the libs just live in round blobs. This is not some casual accident. If these districts were drawn fairly a lot of conservative votes would be lost on some lean lib districts and vice versy. This is a strategy to nullify lib votes. 

House Republicans got 52 percent of the vote in 2016 and 57 percent of the seats. Electorially speaking that is an over whelming advantage. Dems need 55 percent of the vote to break even.  

 
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NCCommish said:
The example linked was a racial gerrymander. As I pointed out that is different than a political one. And the simple fact is Democratic voters tend to live in urban areas.
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End of the day racial and political are essentially the same thing result wise. It's so undemocratic and unamerican it makes me sick.  

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
Do leftists move to cities, or do city-dwellers move to the left?
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I would say both.  Many leftist positions make more sense if you live in a city.  Gun control makes no sense if you live in the country, but in the city you can make a case.  Public transportation is also an issue that makes no sense to country dwellers.  A person who accepts and wants more services will live in the city.   An independent minded person moves away.  

 
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http://www.statesman.com/news/federal-court-voids-travis-county-congressional-district-other/vFiIOrtUdQiQdq3G4GGs0O/

Ruling that the Legislature created congressional maps with the intent to discriminate against minority voters, a federal court Tuesday ordered two districts to be redrawn, including one based in Travis County and another that includes part of Bastrop County.

In its unanimous ruling, the three-judge panel gave Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton three days to advise the court on “whether the Legislature intends to take up redistricting in an effort to cure these violations and, if so, when the matter will be considered.”

If the Legislature does not act, the San Antonio-based court will hold a hearing starting Sept. 5 to begin drawing new maps.

The ruling has the potential for major changes in Travis County, a Democratic stronghold that was broken into five congressional districts — four represented by Republicans and one by U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin.

The court ruled that Doggett’s seat, District 35, will have to be redrawn because Republicans improperly used race as a tool for partisan goals — minimizing the number of Democratic districts while attempting to unseat Doggett by boosting the Hispanic population and extending the new district to San Antonio, making it more likely that voters would choose a Latino candidate.

Efforts to remove Doggett, however, were unsuccessful.

The judges also voided District 27, held by U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi - which includes the Coastal Bend along the Gulf of Mexico and stretches north to include southern Bastrop County. Previously, the district extended south to Brownsville and was heavily Hispanic.

Although the judges had previously found problems with District 23 — held by U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes — Tuesday’s ruling said that district did not have to be redrawn.

The court also rejected arguments that districts around Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth had to redrawn to increase minority voting strength in some areas.

The court, based in San Antonio, has not yet ruled on a similar challenge to districts drawn for the 150 seats in the Texas House.

This is a developing story.

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
One suggestion I've seen is to minimize the sum of the squares of the circumferences of all the districts that evenly divide a state's population into appropriately sized sections. There will probably be a unique solution for each state, but if there's more than one, roll some dice to select one at random.

That seems like a rule that is so objectively apolitical and impossible to game that even politicians might not be able to come up with a rational-sounding reason to oppose it. (And it completely avoids districts with screwy shapes that just look wrong.)
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What you are generally describing could be done in a few different ways.  You probably have one model in your mind though.  I don't think there are enough details in your description to know which model that is.

I've built national staffing models using similar ideas.  Do you have a link to the methodology?  I would be interested in seeing it and It's hard to discuss without more specifics.

 
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Gerrymandering is such a slimy sounding word that it has to be bad.  

I rule in favor of it being horrible without having to hear any additional evidence beyond its name.

 
jon_mx said:
I would say both.  Many leftist positions make more sense if you live in a city.  Gun control makes no sense if you live in the country, but in the city you can make a case.  Public transportation is also an issue that makes no sense to country dwellers.  A person who accepts and wants more services will live in the city.   An independent minded person moves away.  
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I've lived in both and my political outlook didn't change. Now certainly some issues mean more to city folk like public transportation but gun control is pretty universal. My friends who live in Wilkes County right up against the Blue Ridge in a pretty rural area all support universal background checks for example. They don't want people who shouldn't have them, getting guns either.

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
Do leftists move to cities, or do city-dwellers move to the left?
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Well I think the city attracts those on the left. Arts, entertainment, restaurants, higher paying jobs, better public services are all factors in moving to the city. And given the recent trends that have the highly educated going pretty heavily liberal those folks are going to need to at least work in the city even if the live in suburbs. Not much call for PhDs in material sciences in small town USA.

 
NCCommish said:
I've lived in both and my political outlook didn't change. Now certainly some issues mean more to city folk like public transportation but gun control is pretty universal. My friends who live in Wilkes County right up against the Blue Ridge in a pretty rural area all support universal background checks for example. They don't want people who shouldn't have them, getting guns either.
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Support for background checks is about 90 percent.  I am talking about meaningful restrictions.  

 
NCCommish said:
Uninvolved computer geeks who write algorithms. 
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The algorithms usually aren't the issue with a model like this.  The algorithm would likely be fairly simple.  It's manipulating the process, inputs, assumptions, etc. that becomes the problem.

 
Ramblin Wreck said:
How do you know the population for each area?  The voter rolls can't even figure that out.
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Are you being willfully obtuse? You use the census. The whole point of a computer generated district is that it should not matter whether the programmer is a republican or democrat. 

You can look at examples to see they are significantly better than what we have and they don't really have any obvious political bias. These were just the top google searchs, there were tons of others.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/40tlhb/us_congressional_districts_redrawn_by_a_computer/

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

 
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Homer J Simpson said:
Just because you would cheat doesn't mean everyone would. And either way, the results would speak for themselves. 
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What results? You can make the code give you whatever results you want.  That's why it wouldn't work any better.  It's no different than the current system now.  

 
huthut said:
Are you being willfully obtuse? You use the census. The whole point of a computer generated district is that it should not matter whether the programmer is a republican or democrat. 

You can look at examples to see they are significantly better than what we have and they don't really have any obvious political bias. These were just the top google searchs, there were tons of others.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/40tlhb/us_congressional_districts_redrawn_by_a_computer/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/06/03/this-computer-programmer-solved-gerrymandering-in-his-spare-time/
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:lmao:  You guys can't help yourselves.

No, chief.  Don't you think it's at least a little important that our voting rolls know who lives where?  Because they don't.   If the census gets it right why can't voting rolls?  It was a simple question.

 
fatguyinalittlecoat said:
No the code would be directed by law.
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So exactly like what we have now, only a human writes the boundaries in a code instead of a human writing the boundaries on paper?

 
dschuler said:
So exactly like what we have now, only a human writes the boundaries in a code instead of a human writing the boundaries on paper?
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No, lawmakers pass a law that says "computer draws lines based on these criteria:  districts of equal population with total length of the lines between districts as small as possible."  Or something like that where there is no reference to partisanship or race.

A government agency is then directed to write the program. The program's code is made public so that it can be seen whether the programmers explicitly or implicitly took partisanship or race into account.

If any lawmaker believes that the program in any way violates the law, he can bring a case to court, where the judge can listen to expert testimony about whether the program complies with the statute.  If the Courts determine the program is inconsistent with the statute the agency is directed to rewrite the program accordingly.

 
fatguyinalittlecoat said:
No, lawmakers pass a law that says "computer draws lines based on these criteria:  districts of equal population with total length of the lines between districts as small as possible."  Or something like that where there is no reference to partisanship or race.

A government agency is then directed to write the program. The program's code is made public so that it can be seen whether the programmers explicitly or implicitly took partisanship or race into account.

If any lawmaker believes that the program in any way violates the law, he can bring a case to court, where the judge can listen to expert testimony about whether the program complies with the statute.  If the Courts determine the program is inconsistent with the statute the agency is directed to rewrite the program accordingly.
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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.  

 
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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You keep saying there's no difference but there is.  It removes the ability for a party to draw specific lines for an improper purpose while claiming they're doing it for a proper purpose.  That's the primary way we get these crazy districts. 

 
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