Based on 2012 results only, which state gerrymander flipped the most seats?

[Torie]

A good comparison to calculate flip count would be a map made following Muon2 map metrics, but given that only he fully understands the metrics, one can be forgiven for departing from that.

I put this up in part, because I think a good case can be made that the most effective map was the one done by the "non-partisan" commission's AZ map. The Mathismander flipped 3 seats. That might be a hard number to surpass. For example, depending on whether a "fair" map in Illinois with a 58.8% Obama IL-10 CD is viewed as a toss up seat (the Dems drew it at 63% Obama), Illinois might tie AZ with 6 tossup seats, suggesting the Pubs should get 3 seats out of the 6, when in fact they got but one out of the six, from a relative Pub vote sink for the Roskam CD, so the Dem gerrymander secured them 2 more seats per the 2012 election.

I should have added Michigan to the list by the way, but I think that one is a one to two seat flip myself (MI-11 and maybe MI-08, but not with Rodgers around really).

[Torie]

Kept from flipping as compared to a non partisan map following Muon2 metrics. For PA, it seems to me that the Dems would only pick up PA-06, and the Lehigh Valley CD would be a tossup, but Dent would hold it. So I only see a one seat pickup there myself. In Ohio, the Akron based seat flips, and the Cincinnati and Lorain County CD's are tossups, so I mark that as a two seat Pub pickup.

[Torie]

Well following your metrics, sometimes a skew is built in, given the geographic concentrations. One might consider skew as the best measure of "fairness," but per your system, "fairness" in that sense is just a tie breaker, no? Also, your AZ analysis does not take into account the McCain favorite son factor, although given Romney's performance, perhaps it was less than assumed. Anyway, I would consider AZ-09 lean Dem, AZ-02 tilt Dem, AZ-01 and tilt Pub. I think we both drew AZ maps that gave the Dems two seats, with the rest safe Pub. That happens when you have a CD that does not split Tucson, and has the VRA mandated Hispanic CD in Phoenix.

[Torie]

Arizona is only a "gerrymander" as it was drawn intentionally to produce competitive seats.   All three of the competitive seats still have a Republican lean, so it's extremely hard to call it a big win for the Democrats.   The Dems just had a good set of candidates to run there.

I would say either Ohio or Pennsylvania would be the biggest gain for map drawing,  although in the case of PA the Dems are really geographically concentrated, so probably Ohio.  

In Michigan you can draw three more Dem seats,  two more in the Detroit area and a third based out of Lansing and Jackson.   Which shouldn't be surprising considering even in 2014 the Dems won a majority of the House vote.

I won't argue with you about Michigan (I just disagree, per the VRA in particular, what a Muon2 metric map would do), but as to AZ, I would note that the law in AZ was that competitive seats were a sub factor subordinate to everything else, acting as a tie breaker. Mathis put it to the top of the list, in violation of the law, and then I think made them in two cases on the Dem side of the ledger to boot, but I won't argue that one with you either.

Addendum. I revisited Michigan, and drew a new map, following Muon2 metrics. What we find is that two seats flip to the Dems, MI-07 and 08, and based on the 2008 partisan numbers, three CD's move to tossups vis a vis the Pub gerrymandered map, MI-11, MI-02 and the red CD (MI-04 - I can't move the CD numbers for the moment, so the "4" number is in the wrong place). So on paper, that is a flip of 3.5 seats, and thus the national "winner," but in reality, all three tossup CD's would have been held by the Pubs (assuming Rodgers moved to MI-11 to run for re-election). That is particularly the case since all three toss up CD's trended pretty heavily Pub in 2012. In addition, not that it counts for anything for purposes of this exercise, but MI-09 gets rather marginal for the Dems, with a Dem PVI of 2.7%, which probably dropped down to maybe 2% in 2012.

So AZ to me is still the winner, since it did in fact flip three seats.

It's quite gratifying to see how many seats become tossup seats in Illinois, Ohio and Michigan, with good government, Muon2 metric, maps. That is yet another reason to push for their implementation across the Fruited Plain. May the Mainstream Partnership, and the Dem equivalent, multiply and thrive.

[Torie]

If you're including Arizona in this list, it's only fair to include the de facto Republican gerrymander in New Jersey, as well.

That is perhaps true (I have not drawn NJ myself), but does it involve more than one seat, and surely it does not flip more than two seats does it?

[Torie]

If you're including Arizona in this list, it's only fair to include the de facto Republican gerrymander in New Jersey, as well.

That is perhaps true (I have not drawn NJ myself), but does it involve more than one seat, and surely it does not flip more than two seats does it?

A fair map would definitely flip NJ-3, and probably something else in the north (probably by combining 7 and 12 into a compact Middlesex/Somerset district and reconstituting Pascrell's old NJ-8).  It would also increase competitiveness by making NJ-2 and NJ-6 worse for LoBiondo and Pascrell.  So, anywhere between one and three seats.

This is super old and I'd probably tweak some things but you get the basic idea:

Well here is my effort, and on paper it is a two seat flip. NJ-02 moves from toss up to Dem, NJ-11 moves from Pub to tossup, and NJ-07 does a massive flip to the Dems (a 10 point swing to them). So that is about two seats. However, Garrett might well lose NJ-11 as a toss up seat given his lackluster electoral performances.  Labiondo's seat moves a couple of points to the Dems to their side of the ledger, but that is probably not enough to take him down, so he would probably win that seat. NJ-05 becomes a Pub bastion. So it is a one to two seat flip, but more likely two seats in 2012, and possibly even three, in my opinion. But call it two seats as the ledger entry.



And here is an alternative that gets very close to moving  NJ-02 into the tossup category from the Dem side of the ledger, with the Dem PVI dropping a point to 1.56%.  Which map scores higher I have no idea. The population equality between NJ-02, 03 and 01 is better than the other map, but under the Muon2 system, you just take the extremes of the CD's from population equality, so no bonus points for that. The extremes lie elsewhere to avoid county chops or locality chops.  

[Torie]

You say PVI, but you really mean the Dem share of the vote. For PVI purposes the Dem share is the percentage found by dividing the Dem vote by the total Dem+Pub (eliminating all other votes). I'm not sure if your numbers are adjusted to the two-party share.

Since Obama got 53.7% of the two-party vote in 2008, an approximate PVI is found by comparing each of those percentages to 53.7%. Perhaps you did that in your analysis, but not in the table.

Here's the PVI for those maps:

1:  49.6% Obama
2:  53.7% Obama (was kinda surprised by this, wasn't intentional)
3:  49.4% Obama
4:  57.5% Obama
5:  62.3% Obama
6:  43.9% Obama
7:  53.7% Obama
8:  57.9% Obama
9:  55.7% Obama
10:  46% Obama
11:  56.7% Obama
12:  62.3% Obama
13:  74.3% Obama  (50.6% BVAP)
14:  75.6%  Obama  (51% BVAP)

If I'm counting right that's 8 seats that lean Dem, and another 2 that are probably swing seats (MI-7 and MI-2).   That would be AT LEAST three seats picked up from the current map, and possibly two more.

Yeah...I thought that would be obvious,   you subtract 52.9% from each Obama number to get the actual PVI.   Putting the percentage is just a little less work for me, lol.

The method most of us use is to just take the two party vote, and ignore the third party vote. Obama won 53.7% of the two party vote in 2008.  So if a CD is 53.8% Obama, 45% McCain, that sums up to 98.8%. You then divide 53.8% by 98.8%, which gives you 54.5%, which less 53.7%, is a Dem PVI of 0.8%. If there is no third party vote, then it's easy to just subtract 53.7% from the Obama percentage to get the PVI, but with the third party vote, you need to take the extra step.

Sure, one can just take the Obama national percentage of the total vote as a baseline, but that will introduce an error factor, since the percentage of the third party vote varies from place to place. In Florida I think there was no third party vote at all, so if you took the Obama percentage of the whole vote as the baseline, that would systematically overstate the Dem PVI in Florida, and be basically erroneously assuming that absent third parties being on the ballot, Obama would have received all of that third party vote. Hope this makes sense.

[Torie]

I have a question about the Muon2 scoring system. Assuming that you have a macro-chop into a county, what is the penalty, if any, for one locality chop that is neither a macro-chop nor a micro-chop, as opposed to none, in that county? Each locality, whether chopped or not, generates road cuts between it and adjacent localities in another CD, so what is the extra penalty for the chop itself within one locality? Does it matter if the locality chop is a micro-chop or not? Irrespective of whether a county macro-chop is in play, do micro-chops that exist (having already used up the 0.5% population variance wiggle room), generate a road cut, be it in a locality, or a county chop?

The question has some importance with respect to choosing between my two NJ maps. Assuming the best Dem skew is 2 rather than 3 for NJ, than pushing NJ-02 into the toss-up category gets a better skew, but it also seems to require a locality chop in a macro-chopped county. Thus the question as to whether there is an additional penalty for doing that. If not, and the two maps otherwise score the same, than the skew score will act as the tie breaker.

[Torie]

Torie, you are ignoring the VRA in your maps.

There is no Section 2 CD in NJ. It's not possible to draw a 50% VAP, or CVAP CD, of a reasonably contiguous minority area, or in the case of NJ, probably even a non-contiguous one, that potentially mandates varying the the CD lines from that would otherwise be appropriate.  Even if there were, say with respect the NJ-10, it has a BVAP of about 40%, and with a 20% Hispanic HVAP (low voter turnout), and with about half the whites voting Pub, a majority of the voters in the Dem primary will be black, so 40% is sufficient to satisfy the Section 2 requirements. The black voters there will be able to elect a candidate of their choice, without even having to introduce evidence that some whites or Hispanics will vote for a black candidate in a Dem primary. I hope that helps.

[Torie]

Princeton is not split. There is a Princeton borough, and a Princeton township. Oh, you're right, Princetown township actually encircles the borough. Well, I need 11,000 people out of Mercer, and all the available subdivisions have twice that in population. And the chop has to be in Mercer to avoid a cover penalty, so one just has to suck up the locality chop. Well, the other available neutral county for chopping purposes is Atlantic, but alas the adjacent township there in which NJ-04 could cut into, forcing NJ-02 deeper into Burlington (assuming that could be done without itself causing a locality chop), and eliminating the chop in Mercer, is also too large. So we are stuck.

It is clear that the VRA does not apply. If you can't draw a district of a contiguous area that is 50% VAP of a minority, that is the end of the inquiry. I did manage actually to draw a hideous looking CD for NJ-10 that was 50% BVAP, but it crossed over areas in other counties that were only lightly black, to get to blacker nodes in various places. The odds are low such a white bridge crossing mess triggers Section 2. Anyway, it's moot. NJ-10 will elect a candidate of the minorities choice, and there certainly isn't any 50% HCVAP district in play at all. It should be very easy to prove that a majority of voters in the NJ-10 that I drew in a Dem primary will be black. If so, that's as far as the inquiry goes.

Isn't it just grand that public policy doesn't matter for this exercise (we thought about public policy when making the rules, and now that we have the rules, we need to consistently apply them everywhere), so that we have nothing to argue about except the VRA? The only question to ask, is what's the score baby? We are mere automatons.

[Torie]

Princeton is not split. There is a Princeton borough, and a Princeton township. Oh, you're right, Princetown township actually encircles the borough. Well, I need 11,000 people out of Mercer, and all the available subdivisions have twice that in population. And the chop has to be in Mercer to avoid a cover penalty, so one just has to suck up the locality chop.

It is clear that the VRA does not apply. If you can't draw a district of a contiguous area that is 50% VAP of a minority, that is the end of the inquiry. I did manage actually to draw a hideous looking CD for NJ-10 that was 50% BVAP, but it crossed over areas in other counties that were only lightly black, to get to blacker nodes in various places. The odds are low such a white bridge crossing mess triggers Section 2. Anyway, it's moot. NJ-10 will elect a candidate of the minorities choice, and there certainly isn't any 50% HCVAP district in play at all. It should be very easy to prove that a majority of voters in the NJ-10 that I drew in a Dem primary will be black. If so, that's as far as the inquiry goes.

Isn't it just grand that public policy doesn't matter for this exercise (we thought about public policy when making the rules, and now that we have the rules, we need to consistently apply them everywhere), so that we have nothing to argue about except the VRA? The only question to ask, is what's the score baby? We are mere automatons.

It's not in DRA, but Princeton boro and township voted to merge recently.  It's all just one Princeton now. 

Per my post above, it doesn't matter. Even before the merger, Princeton township was too large.

[Torie]

I have a question about the Muon2 scoring system. Assuming that you have a macro-chop into a county, what is the penalty, if any, for one locality chop that is neither a macro-chop nor a micro-chop, as opposed to none, in that county? Each locality, whether chopped or not, generates road cuts between it and adjacent localities in another CD, so what is the extra penalty for the chop itself within one locality? Does it matter if the locality chop is a micro-chop or not? Irrespective of whether a county macro-chop is in play, do micro-chops that exist (having already used up the 0.5% population variance wiggle room), generate a road cut, be it in a locality, or a county chop?

The question has some importance with respect to choosing between my two NJ maps. Assuming the best Dem skew is 2 rather than 3 for NJ, than pushing NJ-02 into the toss-up category gets a better skew, but it also seems to require a locality chop in a macro-chopped county. Thus the question as to whether there is an additional penalty for doing that. If not, and the two maps otherwise score the same, than the skew score will act as the tie breaker.

If there is a macrochop in a county then the subdivisions of the county are treated like counties themselves. Imagine that a macrochop causes the county to be replaced by its subdivisions. Chops into those subdivisions activated by a macrochop are treated just like any other county chop. The only difference between subdivisions and counties is that connections between subdivisions within a county  may consider any public road, not just numbered state and federal highways.

Perhaps I should create a sticky thread with the rules for reference.

Well then if a subdivision chop in such instance counts the same as a county chop, doing a subdivision chop in a macro chopped county is near fatal to one's score. That still leaves the issue of whether micro-chops (after using up the 0.5% wiggle room), generate road cuts. I assume that they do, but I just want to confirm that.

[Torie]

I have a question about the Muon2 scoring system. Assuming that you have a macro-chop into a county, what is the penalty, if any, for one locality chop that is neither a macro-chop nor a micro-chop, as opposed to none, in that county? Each locality, whether chopped or not, generates road cuts between it and adjacent localities in another CD, so what is the extra penalty for the chop itself within one locality? Does it matter if the locality chop is a micro-chop or not? Irrespective of whether a county macro-chop is in play, do micro-chops that exist (having already used up the 0.5% population variance wiggle room), generate a road cut, be it in a locality, or a county chop?

The question has some importance with respect to choosing between my two NJ maps. Assuming the best Dem skew is 2 rather than 3 for NJ, than pushing NJ-02 into the toss-up category gets a better skew, but it also seems to require a locality chop in a macro-chopped county. Thus the question as to whether there is an additional penalty for doing that. If not, and the two maps otherwise score the same, than the skew score will act as the tie breaker.

If there is a macrochop in a county then the subdivisions of the county are treated like counties themselves. Imagine that a macrochop causes the county to be replaced by its subdivisions. Chops into those subdivisions activated by a macrochop are treated just like any other county chop. The only difference between subdivisions and counties is that connections between subdivisions within a county  may consider any public road, not just numbered state and federal highways.

Perhaps I should create a sticky thread with the rules for reference.

Well then if a subdivision chop in such instance counts the same as a county chop, doing a subdivision chop in a macro chopped county is near fatal to one's score. That still leaves the issue of whether micro-chops (after using up the 0.5% wiggle room), generate road cuts. I assume that they do, but I just want to confirm that.

Yep, all chops count for road cuts. Well unless they divide a county such that there are no local roads to connect the pieces.

Thank you. I assume an internal subdivision cut in a non macro-chopped county, just generates more road cuts with adjacent subdivisions, is that right (I have one of those in Mercer County)? I found the solution for South Jersey, to get the skew right. No subdivision chops, and it should score well on erosity as well.

Now the only problem, is that I chopped Perth Amboy (sorry Jon Bon Jovi) to avoid a chop of a county, and apparently that counts the same as a county chop, in a macro-chopped county, so it may be there are other maps out there with the same chop count. It's quite inconvenient in Jersey in same places that have large subdivisions, that have shapes that make them impossible to bypass, or involve traveling chops. Jersey given that, and that most of its counties are in UCC areas, creates walls everywhere. So it is the search for the least bad alternative. I really wish computer programs were written to handle this sort of drudgery. It's kind of beneath my pay grade now.



I did manage to get rid of a tiny internal subdivision micro-chop in macro-chopped Bergen County, while still making the populations work, which had a very narrow objective function of about 500 people (both NJ-08 and NJ-09 were at the edge of being too short in population, so both needed to be close to equally short).  Ugly little affair isn’t it?  

 

[Torie]

You could argue that a black CD is not needed, but I'd say that it's pretty easy to draw a fairly compact Latino-influence CD that's over 50% vap.You will of course have to split all sorts of munis and counties, but it's clear that the courts prioritize VRA stuff over such things.

50% total population is not too hard, but 50% VAP actually is quite difficult (and 50% CVAP harder still), and requires a fair amount of ugliness, such as multiple bridges through mostly-unpopulated and/or white-majority areas in the Meadowlands and vicinity, and/or splitting many munis in Hudson with a snake down the river to get supermajority-white Hoboken out of there.  In other words... it won't be "fairly compact" anymore.

The current NJ-8 is majority-Hispanic (though I don't know about VAP, and almost certainly it's sub-50% on CVAP), but its previous incarnation was only something like 47% Hispanic, and the courts were obviously fine with that:

The Courts may be fine with that, but they are clearly not demanding it under the VRA, so under Muon2 metrics, we just ignore what the Courts allow. We are only worried about what they require.

[Torie]

I discovered Washington Township in Mercer County (which is the right size to swallow whole), so I was able to get rid of the Princeton chop there.

[Torie]

Train's prediction that NC's gerrymander involved a 2 seat flip to the Pubs, appears to be correct.  Below is the Muon2 metric map. Remarkably. Outside the mandatory chops in Mecklenberg and Wake Counties, remarkably given the Jimrtex urban cluster obstacle course there is only one other county that is chopped.  Who would have imagined that poor little Rockingham County would end up being tri-chopped?

There are no Section 2 CD's involved, but even without the free pass to pack black Democrats, the map is still skewed to the Pubs by one more seat than would be "fair." The skew based on 2008 results should be two seats to the Pubs, rather than three.

[Torie]

In other news, assuming CT's rather defunct county lines are used, the Dems bagged a half seat out of the map. CT-05 should be a toss up CD, rather than a Dem CD.



It is still my best guess, that nationally, the gerrymandering game in the 2010 census cycle garnered about 10 extra seats for the Pubs.

[Torie]

1. Communities of interest are ignored. That is the whole point. An exception quite possibly is for Indian Reservations, but the Lumbees don't have one. So they are out of luck.

2. There is a traveling chop issue for my NC-9, but it is not clear if they are prohibited, or you just pay the the price vis a vis chop and erosity scores. Without a possible traveling chop, the city of Charlotte has to be split, which counts the same as a county chop for macro-chopped counties such as Mecklenburg. Gaston has to be taken in, because it is part of the Charlotte urban cluster, and if not included, you have a cover and pack penalty. And although COI does not matter, absent a traveling chop, the map would chop up the black community in Mecklenburg. And depending on how you slice Charlotte exactly, one CD becomes tossup, and the other remains in the Pub column, albeit narrowly.

3. There was a rogue precinct yes, and that caused a map change, since it threw off the population of NC-03. The tri-chopped county is lost, and two small county chops replace it, for the same chop score. The erosity score probably improves. The new map is a bit more Pub friendly, and the skew goes to Pub plus 2, and the Dem gain from the gerrymander drops to 1.5 seats.

[Torie]

Train's prediction that NC's gerrymander involved a 2 seat flip to the Pubs, appears to be correct.  Below is the Muon2 metric map. Remarkably. Outside the mandatory chops in Mecklenberg and Wake Counties, remarkably given the Jimrtex urban cluster obstacle course there is only one other county that is chopped.  Who would have imagined that poor little Rockingham County would end up being tri-chopped?

There are no Section 2 CD's involved, but even without the free pass to pack black Democrats, the map is still skewed to the Pubs by one more seat than would be "fair." The skew based on 2008 results should be two seats to the Pubs, rather than three.

That's about like the version I got for my NC in 2013. There is one thing to correct in the spreadsheet. Skew is based on the expected bias of seats. NC in 2008 was 3.5% more Pub than the national numbers, so multiplying that by 4 and by 13 seats, gives an expected delegation that is R+2. Thus, since your excess is R+3, the skew for your map is R+1.

The excess is 4 now, so the skew is 2. See my revised map.

[Torie]

Well, my concern regarding the Lumbee is that, unlike most so-called communities of interest, the Lumbee are genuinely an obvious community of interest in a quantifiable sense. In any case, it's easy to keep them together while maintaining a whole county CD-7 and CD-8 (although it does finks over CD-3 somewhat, but there's always somewhere in NC that gets a little messed up).

Charlotte UCC is too big for 2 districts, so you have to chop somewhere. So you might as well chop in Gaston County since you can't link it to any of the other Charlotte UCC counties.

Once you go into COI considerations, it all falls apart. There needs to be clear bright line scoring rules.
If the Lumbees had a reservation, then an exception could be made, ala Arizona, because in essence the reservations sort of count as their own counties as it were.

Gaston is trapped, and if it is chopped, you have a cover penalty. If Gaston is chopped, then there will be another impingement of the Charlotte urban cluster on the other side of the cluster.  Rowan, Stanley and Union Counties are all part of the cluster. So the chop into the Charlotte urban cluster, all needs to be on its east side.

[Torie]

1. Communities of interest are ignored. That is the whole point. An exception quite possibly is for Indian Reservations, but the Lumbees don't have one. So they are out of luck.

2. There is a traveling chop issue for my NC-9, but it is not clear if they are prohibited, or you just pay the the price vis a vis chop and erosity scores. Without a possible traveling chop, the city of Charlotte has to be split, which counts the same as a county chop for macro-chopped counties such as Mecklenburg. Gaston has to be taken in, because it is part of the Charlotte urban cluster, and if not included, you have a cover and pack penalty. And although COI does not matter, absent a traveling chop, the map would chop up the black community in Mecklenburg. And depending on how you slice Charlotte exactly, one CD becomes tossup, and the other remains in the Pub column, albeit narrowly.

3. There was a rogue precinct yes, and that caused a map change, since it threw off the population of NC-03. The tri-chopped county is lost, and two small county chops replace it, for the same chop score. The erosity score probably improves. The new map is a bit more Pub friendly, and the skew goes to Pub plus 2, and the Dem gain from the gerrymander drops to 1.5 seats.

I also see a bridge chop in CD-8 (Randolph). In addition there is no highway connection between Rowan and Stanly. This version could fit with the rest of the plan to fix the defects.



CD-5: R+8
CD-8: R+1
CD-9: R+17
CD-12: D+2

This also drops the skew back to R+1.

Edit: The 2010 population of Charlotte (731,424) is barely below as that of a CD (733,499). But Pineville is surrounded and has a 2010 population of 7,479, so it puts any whole Charlotte district over the quota by more than the variance. It also looks like the city lines for Charlotte cut off Gaston county. I would conclude that a chop of Charlotte is a necessity.

Edit2: We defined a CoI for black (esp rural) counties as connected counties over 40% BVAP. Martin counties fits that, so it should swap with Currituck to keep the MCC together. The swap also improves erosity.

I thought there was a bridge problem to Currituck, but I see now there are the requisite bridges to that county from the balance of NC-03.  I also see there is no road connection to Gaston that avoids Charlotte, so putting aside what the rules are for traveling chops (never fully discussed), it is a no go. Some states allow discontiguous CD’s for trapped governmental jurisdictions, but presumably NC does not, so there is a population issue for Charlotte as well.

I also see the traveling chop issue for Randolph. Anyway, the map below fixes the issues. You have a pack penalty for the Charlotte urban cluster, and this map loses that, in exchange for an extra county chop of Moore County. So the scoring of the two maps comes down to their respective erosity scores.






Here is another iteration, which might potentially improve the erosity score.

[Torie]

Moving right along from the battle of North Carolina, here is my Louisiana map. A pack penalty of the New Orleans metro area was unavoidable, and to avoid a cover and pack penalty for Baton Rouge, I needed to do an artificial chop into St. John the Baptist Parish with LA-01. And voila, here is an example of where two counties cannot be connected, even though it would have solved some problems for me, to wit, between St. James and Assumption Parishes. There is no road connection between them at all. And I did keep in one CD the 4 black Mississippi River counties in the NE corner of the state as well.

An interesting question is with St. John the Baptist parish, is that the southern bit has no road connection to the balance of the parish. Does putting that portion of the parish into another CD count that is connected by a road count as a chop? It's moot here, because I needed to put another precinct in the parish across the river into LA-02 to make the numbers work, but it could have potentially been an issue. Louisiana is a bit of a challenge given the relatively lack of road connections in the Bayou area. But hey, that is why some Cajuns travel by boat.

The Dems are shut out here. LA-01 has a Pub PVI of about 2%. I do not consider that there is a Section 2 CD in play connecting the black areas of Baton Rouge and New Orleans. There are white areas in between. Even if there were not, arguably connecting two black metro areas with a rural bridge is not even then a Section 2 CD. But with a white blockade, there almost certainly is not in my opinion.

So the Dems picked up a seat over what a Muon2 metric map would have given them. And this map does not rely on a non state road paved connection.

[Torie]

How on earth did you come across that trivia? Assuming there was no ferry, does it count as a chop or not in your opinion?

[Torie]

How on earth did you come across that trivia? Assuming there was no ferry, does it count as a chop or not in your opinion?

It counts as a chop, but there is no link created so it adds nothing to erosity. It may even reduce erosity depending on which parts are attached to which other areas. St John the Baptist parish is complicated in that the county seat (Edgard) is not the seat of government (LaPlace).

You seem to be an expert on this county.  I actually have visited it, when I toured the Evergreen Plantation. The docent was Cajun, and had something of a French accent, which was cool. She said about a third of the visitors were French in fact. What was cool, is the teenaged boys when they got to be about 14, stayed in separate quarters, with its own entrance. I wish I had had such quarters at that age, alas.

[Torie]

And here is Georgia. All of the chops are in the Atlanta urban cluster – seven chops, four of which are macrochops, three in Fulton, and one in Gwinnett.  There are no locality chops, and no urban cluster associated penalty points, including any chops of 40% plus BVAP rural county clusters. There are two nodes of such clusters, one in my GA-10, and another in GA-6.  It was quite laborious to map them out.

GA-10 has a Pub PVI of 1.4%, so ala Connecticut, the Dems lose a half a half seat with a Muon2 metric map (they have 3.5 seats, rather than 4 seats). GA-10 is not a section 2 CD, so that ends any discussion of whether Section 2 would otherwise require GA-10 crossing into Macon over a white bridge.  Chopping into Macon does not get the BVAP up to 50%.  My GA-11 has a 38.2% BVAP, but it went 63.6% Obama, so presumably a black would be nominated in a Dem primary, and obtain enough white votes to get elected. The other two black CD’s are a bit over 50% BVAP.

I must say Muon2’s system is proving to work quite well. However, it is increasingly obvious that using it is not going to harvest the Dems many more seats as compared to the present regime.  And in most cases it is not really due to the VRA, but geography. The VRA did not hurt the Dems in Georgia.  In fact, the only thing that helped the Dems in Georgia was Muon2’s 40% BVAP rural county cluster metric, which shoved GA-10 into the tossup category.  Otherwise, it would probably have ended up Pub.