Dave's Redistricting App

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Does anyone know how many California districts are VRA-protected for African Americans? (9th, 33rd, 35th, and 37th).  None are black plurality, let alone black majority districts, but they reliably elect African American congressmen in a state with a not-insignificant African American population.

None of them.

Correct. California statewide is not covered by the VRA.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

New Hampshire? Why?

I have absolutely no clue. Also no clue why two rather random townships in Michigan are covered as well. The counties in Florida seem pretty random as well and not the type of places I'd expect to be covered.

Also interesting that the Jamaica district is not VRA-protected. Better gerrymandering in East Queens, here we come.

I don't think county coverage affects drawing maps. It just means they have to adhere to the other federal regulations for areas covered by the VRA. Personally I think NYC should be "bailed out" by now (exempted, that's the case with those striped counties in Virginia) since it's obvious they won't be trying to disenfranchise any minority voters and the regulations require federal approval to change anything about elections. In other words if a voting place is being moved next door or across the street this can't pass unlike the DoJ approves it. I understand why it was set up that way but it's clearly not needed in some locations anymore.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If that's the reason it might be time to let them off the hook by now.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The New Hampshire townships have a total population of about 16,000.

The two in Michigan includes one that's about 30% Hispanic (kind of odd, it's in the middle of nowhere and the county population is only about 5% Hispanic), the other is just outside of Saginaw and is less than 10% Hispanic but majority black.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Democratic gerrymander of Colorado:





Democrats probably win everything except the Colorado Springs and giant gray districts, so 5:2.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Greeley isn't a Democratic city though. You can't see it well on the map that far out, but I had the yellow district take in only the eastern half of it (the older part of the city which is also heavily Hispanic.) The western half (which looks like new development and suburban hell on Google Street View) is in the gray district.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Remember the district already contains southern Jefferson County and the most densely populated part of Douglas, Tom Tancredo territory. Also the city Loveland south of Fort Collins which had no problems voting for Marilyn Musgrave. It can easily absorb and handle that now, but something 50/50 like Greeley might leave it a bit too open.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Obviously it won't ever happen, but what's everyone think of this Pennsylvania?



Oddly while I didn't intend for it to be a Dem gerrymander it basically is.

PA-01: Phil now gets Brady instead of Schwartz. 74% Obama.
PA-02: 71% black. 94% Obama.
PA-03: 61% Obama. Schwartz will take this now.
PA-04: 59% Obama. Safe for a Dem, Sestak can take this back if he loses and Meehan wins.
PA-05: 54% Obama. Not safe Dem of course, Gerlach might win it.
PA-06: I love this seat. 60% Obama. Not sure what Democrat would take it though, maybe the mayor of Lancaster or York or something.
PA-07: 60% McCain, Todd Platts probably wins it.
PA-08: 54% Obama. Would be held by either Murphy or Fitzpatrick. The two could might end up like Baron Hill and Mike Sodrel.
PA-09: 56% McCain, new Republican would win it.
PA-10: 54% Obama. Carney might want to move here, as well as Dent.
PA-11: Also 54% Obama. Hazelton is removed, but I suppose that racist loon might move here anyway. He'd probably lose to anyone besides Kanjorski though.
PA-12: 54% McCain, but Tim Holden could probably win it.
PA-13: Phil would prefer this new PA-13. 63% McCain. Bill Shuster would be safe.
PA-14: 59% McCain. Very conservative seat, Thompson is fine.
PA-15: 53% McCain, but Critz would probably hold it.
PA-16: The new Pittsburgh seat, 65% Obama, easy hold for Doyle.
PA-17: 52% McCain seat, but Altmire probably would hold it, it's less conservative than his current seat.
PA-18: 52% Obama. Dahlkemper could return to this seat which is more Dem.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Someone on SSP posted a map of a hypothetical Republican gerrymander of Massachusetts. It had a grand total of two Republican seats and one more maybe winnable one.

Massachusetts is simply not a state where most of the seats SHOULD be competitive. Yes the current map is ugly and not fair to many areas and kind of defies explanation why such an ugly drawing should be needed (I suppose it's largely to maximize the influence of the Boston area, but it's not like they'd be underrepresented without it.) But that doesn't mean drawing it non-gerrymandered would mean Republicans would be likely to win many seats. It's much like saying that the Republicans can't win any of the non-Staten Island seats in NYC because it's gerrymandered, it may be but that's not the reason why Republicans don't win there.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Not really possible because of the Omaha area.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

That's basically just the current map with a very ugly CD 7. Just refer to the Swing State Project's hypothetical Republican gerrymander of Massachusetts, it contains one McCain district and one barely Obama district.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So, I tried clicking on the new version of the App, having only used the original version, and a pop-up box came up saying I needed to download an updated version of Silverlight, so I clicked on the link, downloaded the new version of Silverlight, and installed it - or at least, installed it as far as I can tell, since it said "the software was successfully installed" at the last step of the installer - but now both the new version and the original App don't work - instead when I click on either link, all I get is a light blue icon in the top left telling me... to install Microsoft Silverlight!



Any thoughts from the more IT-savvy out there?

What browser are you using?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The original running seamless in IE for me is one of IE's few redeeming features (and one of only two things I use it for. The other watching on Netflix Watch Instantly.) The new one works fine on Opera though, which is my main browser.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

For those who have wanted to draw state leg districts or whatever for At-Large states, there is now data for every state except Alaska up.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

OK while doing North Dakota I must ask what this "New Minneapolis" (amusing name) place is, I see it in Stutsman County off I-94 which I've driven a million times but have never seen any road sign for it and this is the first I've heard of it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

How many state legislative seats do the Democrats have in Delaware outside of New Castle County? With the maps I'm drawing I'm having a tough time seeing them win anything outside of up to two Dover based House seats and one Dover Senate seat. Dover's black population is so high though that the Democrats would probably win anything based around it even without the state employee voters that make most state capitals more Democratic than the state.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Weird, they must hold some pretty conservative areas then. Some of those districts would've had to voted for O'Donnell. I have a tough time seeing how anyone could vote for both O'Donnell and a Democrat.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Weird, they must hold some pretty conservative areas then. Some of those districts would've had to voted for O'Donnell. I have a tough time seeing how anyone could vote for both O'Donnell and a Democrat.

Knowing rural Delaware, at least some of those Democratic legislators from Sussex County probably voted for O'Donnell.

Delaware has ConservaDems? Kind of weird, it's traditionally Republican rather than Democratic and never had any type of Dixiecrat machine. FDR even failed to win it in 1932.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Still kind of odd that they'd still be around this late, and that the guy in HD-41 was even welcomed into the caucus (I'd be pretty outraged about that if I were a Delaware Democrat, though I don't know the whole story, maybe they were pretty reluctant.)

I just found something odd though it might just be an error, there's a precinct near Wilmington which is literally 100% white, and it has almost 1000 people (close to Canby Park). It's about in the area where the black population starts to fade, but not to that level, the surrounding precincts are about 20% black.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Texas has had it for awhile.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Partisan data is also available for Idaho, which I know everyone was clamoring for.

Actually it's pretty interesting to see what's the strongest Obama LD you can draw. A 66% Obama one is actually possible.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

A good partisan measure of the area is probably just to average the Obama figures and the "average" numbers.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I've uploaded DRA Version 2.2.4, which has a new feature for California, which allows you to work with a subset of the state at a time. Because California is so large, even on a fast machine panning and zooming can be pretty slow. By working with a subset those operations are noticably faster. (And it's not the old feature where it automatically puts a bunch of districts around the center of the screen! :-))

That's the main reason I haven't made any California maps. Thanks!

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's the average of all statewide races in 2010 though I have no clue how the gubernatorial one was handled, maybe Tancredo + Maes was added for the Rep figures?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Bennet vs. Buck is probably a better measure of the state's partisanship than the 2008 numbers, so it's not entirely worthless. Still I'd like a little clarification of the algorithms used because of the gubernatorial thing mentioned, Hickenlooper vs. Maes + Tancredo isn't a bad measure but I'd like some confirmation that's what was averaged.

The Republicans won all the other races though, AG with 57-43, Treasurer by about 2 points, and Sec of State with barely over 50% but by 7 points thanks to a Constitution Party candidate (I suspect just the two party numbers are averaged), so it's not surprising the numbers are slightly GOP-leaning. Probably shift them two points to the Democrats to get a more accurate number.