Talk Elections

Well?

There needs to be a legal definition for gerrymandering first.

That, or a law mandating how everyone redistricts.

Completely? No, probably not.

But I think if you have very clear rules in place about county and city splits, and so on, you can greatly reduce it. I think this is more necessary than ever given how sophisticated/insane computers have allowed gerrymandering to become.

First, there needs to be a set of clear geographic rules such as restrictions on county and municipal splits, beyond the minimum needed to meet federal law. Keeping split governments to one per pair of districts is probably as good a benchmark as any.

Second there needs to be a test to measure whether the map is too partisan. This has been the issue on which the court has yet to agree, though a clear majority believes that a test is desirable.

I would suggest that a simple test that would measure the PVI for the state and for each district. The state's PVI would determine the majority party for the state. Then count each district with a PVI over 5 as a whole seat for that party and over 1 as a half seat for the party. PVI's of 1 or 0 don't count for either side. Find the difference between the majority party's seats and the minority party's seats, divide by the total number of districts, and subtract the percentage PVI for the state. That's the measure of the map's partisan bias.

One expects any map to have some partisan impact, but not to dominate over other redistricting principles. To make a statistical argument that partisan gerrymandering has gone to far, I would multiply the partisan bias percentage by the number of districts in the state and square it. If that number is larger than the number of districts the partisan gerrymander is dominating other effects.

For example let's use the new WA congressional map. The state has a PVI of D+5. According to Krazen's post

There are 4 seats for the Dems (3+2 halves) and 3 seats for the GOP (2+2 halves) for a partisan difference of D+1. That translates to a partisan bias factor of 5% (1*10%-5%) which isn't much. The gerrymander test gives 0.5 squared or 0.25 which is far less than the 10 seats.

For IL the state PVI is D+8 and the result of the map is partisan difference of D+7.5 seats or a partisan bias factor of 34%. The gerrymander test gives 37 which is much larger than the 18 districts. It's fair to say that partisan concerns dominated the IL map, which is what the federal court said, but couldn't test.

As other PVI's come in I'd be happy to test them as well.

I don't believe in purposely gerrymandering a strong seat for a party. But I also don't believe in purposely gerrymandering swing seats.

To a degree. In states with strong initiative-and-referendum processes.

Since it would be too difficult to pass a constitutional amendment, it would have to be done through the initiative process.

It's also not going to happen if the parties have any say in it.

But there should also be something to prevent a party from creating no swing seats, much like the current CA congressional map. Some number of swing seats insure that the legislature can change with the interests of the public.

I've dug up a couple more states and modified my rounding rules to be consistent. Most of the PVI's reported are in whole numbers so a D+5.2 = D+5. I'll round the PVI to the nearest percent before using it to determine the status of a district. That matters for instance in IL where 3 districts are between D+5.0 and D+5.5.

I can also measure the swing seat composition of a map with a similar technique. Add half the lean districts (PVI 2-5) to the even seats (PVI 0-1) to get a total. The swing seat factor (SSF) is the square of that total should be roughly equal to the number of districts in the state if the map has neither too few nor too many swing districts.

IL (18): Partisan Difference D+6, Partisan Bias 25.6%, PBF 21.2, Swing seats 4, SSF 16.
NJ (12): PD D+2.5, PBI 16.4%, PBF 3.9, Swing seats 2.5, SSF 6.
PA (18): PD R+4.5, PBI 27.0%, PBF 23.6, Swing seats 4.5, SSF 20.
WA (10): PD D+1, PBI 5.0%, PBF 0.3, Swing seats 3, SSF 9.

What this would suggest is that IL and PA are partisan gerrymanders, and NJ is fair but leans towards incumbent protection. WA passes this partisan test, though it could have other problems on purely geographical factors like county integrity.

The Constitution mandates districts, IIRC, but one idea I've liked for legislative districts is to just use the existing congressional districts and make them multi-member constituences using proportional representation for state legislative elections. This might not work in California and other states with an absurdly small number of seats in their state legislatures.

In Washington, though, we could have ten districts, each with ten seats*, for our state house.

Republicans in Seattle could be represented in the state legislature. Same with Democrats in rural Eastern Washington. This would also make it easier for minorities (like Hispanics in Central Washington) to get elected. Third parties would also have a chance to get elected.

*I believe a Constitutional amendment would be required, as the current Constitution caps the house at 99. You could also just do 9-seat districts, I guess.

The United States Constitution doesn't ban multi-member districts, if that's what you mean. They've often been used, although not in the last half-century or so.


If anything, that's even worse, because when every seat is a swing seat you get swings in the composition of the legislature entirely out of proportion to the change in votes.

How would this work with Massachusetts and its 0 swing seats?

As I understand it these are the Massachusetts PVIs.

1: D+14
2: D+12
3: D+8
4: D+11
5: D+15
6: D+6
7: D+30
8: D+8
9: D+7

Massachusetts has some seats which would be swing seats by PVI but are solid Dem because of the total lack of quality GOP candidates.

I certainly agree with the general notion that the failure of a party to win swing seats is not the fault of the map. Michigan, for instance, has only 2 McCain districts and the strongest of those is 50.34% McCain.

How many of the districts were won by Bush in 2004?

Actually none of the districts in MA would be swing seats based on my criteria, since the best is D+6. The formula would give a PBF of 63 and a SSF of 0. MA will always be a partisan map since there are no compact areas for a district with a majority of GOPs. However, the map could have been drawn with a couple of swing seats (MA-6 and 9 would probably be the easiest to shift) to lower the PBF and increase the SSF. It would still be partisan, but not such much incumbent protection.

9. Incidentally Bush won 10 districts on the current map and the legislature eliminated a Bush district.

The main thing is to take redistricting out of the hands of partisan legislatures and into the hands of procedurally neutral commissions of some sort. It's a basic democratic principle: the management of the election shouldn't be in the hands of one of the parties competing in it. I think this is much more important than developing an exact mathematical definition of a "fair" map.

I can understand the existence of criticisms of the various commission-drawn maps, but these criticisms only make sense against the background of a much higher expectation of fairness for the commissions. Any of AZ, WA or NJ would be considered at most a very mild gerrymander if they were instituted by a legislature of the party on whom they are supposed to confer advantage.

Better still is to have the commission sort from publicly generated maps. The MN contest drew 500 submissions after the OH contest had 100 entries. The public can draw good maps, and with some guidelines as to the goals from the commission then the effects of any commission bias can be reduced.

Whomever sets the "guidelines," in effect, will draw the lines through the surrogates of his choosing. Any "contest" merely will offer the veneer of democratic participation in what is really an elite-driven process.

Which maps submitted by the public are "good" depends a lot on your point of view. One person might view maps that are compact and rather squarish "good," while another might view maps that meander to group together "communities of interests," whatever that means, as "good."

Many of the problems associated with redistricting are moral. We have elected politicians whom will not pursue the general interest. The solution to many of the problems associated with redistricting is going to have to be an equally moral solution. It's hard to legislate morality, and, it is nearly impossible to mathematically quantify morality.

There's a growing shortage of quotation marks in the mountain west. Please use them judiciously.

Better still to have the public determine the maps.  It is legitimate for the public to have a bias and act upon that bias.

Agreed, but there is a role for an outside group to set clear standards so that public maps can be compared. A commission can perform that task.

The standards set by the commission will depend in large part on whom is seated on the commission. Every politician will know that fact, and, act to seat people whom are friendly to their preferred standards. Politicians will still set the standards, only, the process will be indirect, rather than direct.

Of course not.

You can craft an expansive set of rules restricting what maps are legal and what maps are not, but as long as there is more than one possible legal map that can be drawn, the politicians will choose that which they deem most beneficial. You can outsource the entire process to a commission, but in the end the commission will also draw the map they find most pleasing for whatever reason. Often this will result in a swing-seat gerrymander or some sort of bargain they deem "fair". But either way it's still drawn with a purpose of achieving some end. Gerrymandering is an unavoidable evil within our system.

I would not consider that to be gerrymandering with the usual definition. Gerrymandering means to manipulate the boundaries to favor one party or group (such as race). Drawing maps with rules such as county and municipality integrity and compactness are not gerrymandering. Is is possible to gerrymander given a set of rules - certainly and it happens all the time. However, the more specific the rules the less one can manipulate boundaries at will.

Furthermore if one sets rules in advance, then provide for a different map maker than ruler maker, it creates additional constraints on gerrymandering. It's like the classic solution to splitting a cupcake between two children; let one divide the cupcake and the other have first pick of the halves.

It's certainly possible to draw a map without regard to political concerns. Look at Canada; the electoral districts of Saskatchewan are awful, but in the other nine provinces the boundaries are quite satisfactory and generally aesthetically pleasing.

An administrator can ensure that maps submitted by individuals are compare-able.

It's hard to get rid of gerrymandering altogether, but if you look at the process in almost any other country with single member electoral districts you'll see that it's possible to do a lot better than in the US.  Even the worst seats proposed by the Boundary Commission for England in their recent provisional proposals are nothing compared with some American districts (which, given Mersey Banks, is saying something).  Even some US states - like Iowa and, now, California - seem to show that it's possible to do much better within the US system.

This.
It is impossible to abolish all kinds of gerrymandering all together, but not a big problem to reduce it to a level that is acceptable.

It depends on what you call gerrymandering, as already noted, but I certainly think you can aim towards neutral seats. In some US states, they even do so.