New Zealand style apportionment in USA.

[jimrtex]

In New Zealand persons are classified as Maori or non-Maori in the census, and also on the electoral rolls.  In addition, a Maori voter may choose to be placed on the Maori or general electoral roll.  Maori voters who chose the Maori roll vote in districts limited to similar voters, while those who choose the general roll vote with other voters.  The two sets of districts (NZ calls them "electorates") overlay the entire country.

Electorates are based on the census population.  So if in a given locality, 37% of the Maori voters choose the Maori electoral roll, then 37% of the Maori population in that locality is attributed to defining the Maori electorates, while the other 67% plus the rest of the population is used in delineating the general electorates.

There are currently 7 Maori electorates, with one including all of South Island plus crossing the Cook Strait to include part of Wellington.

Mapping application of NZ electorates

In applying this system to the USA, I started with the 6 racial categories: White, Black, Asian, American Indian or Alaskan Native (AIAN); Hawaiian Islander or Other Pacific Islander (HIOPI); and Other, as well as the Hispanic status.  I assumed that there was no general roll, or alternatively, that all voters chose the roll specific to their race,

On the census, a person may select any combination of the 6 races categories (63 combinations in all).  These were collapsed into larger groups that were of sufficient size to have at least one representative apportioned to them.  Hispanics and non-Hispanics were treated separately.

Groups were collapsed beginning with the smallest, the 32 persons reported they were White, Black, AIAN, HIOPI, and Other - all but Asian.  If a group included "Other", it was collapsed into the classification that did not include Other.  If a group did  not include "Other", the largest race classification was removed.  That is: White, Black, and Asian would be collapsed into Black and Asian.

Non-Hispanics were apportioned 380 representatives:

White	300
Black	53
Asian	16
AIAN	4
HIOPI	1
Other	1
White + Black	1
White + AIAN	2
White + Asian	1
White + Other	1

In apportioning representatives among the States, whole numbers were apportioned to states entitled to 1.00 or more representatives.  The rest of the population was combined into multi-state districts.

White (300 representatives)


Delaware and District Columbia form a single district, as do Alaska and Hawaii.  Vermont is just short of the population for a single district, and Wyoming has about 2/3 of the population, but no neighbors to share the district with.

Black (53 representatives)


46 of the 53 representatives are from single states, and 7 from multistate districts.  About half of New England is from Massachusetts, and the other half from Connecticut.  Half of DC-DE-WV is from the District of Columbia.   2/3s of IN-KY is from Indiana.  About 2/5 of North Central is from Wisconsin, with 1/5 each from Minnesota and Kansas.  90% of MO-IA is in Missouri, and Missouri could have had a district of its own, but Iowa was attached to provide better balance.  Over half of AR-OK-NM is from Arkansas with most of the rest from Oklahoma.  New Mexico is included for better population balance.  About 1/5 of West is from each of Washington, Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada, with the remaining 1/5 from the other 4 states.

Asian (16 representatives)


8 of the 16 representatives are from single states, 6 from California and 2 from New York.   The other 8 representatives are from multistate districts.    In 2010 it is likely that Texas and New Jersey will qualify for their own districts.

New England has about enough population for 4/7 a representative, too small to stand alone, but too large to be combined with New Jersey, thus the somewhat odd combination with Pennsylvania and West Virginia.  New Jersey forms about 2/3 of the NJ-MD-DE-DC district. Virginia and Florida each have too much population to be placed in a single South Atlantic district, but not enough to form the core of two districts, thus the placement of Virginia in Virginia-Mideast, with Virginia constituting a little over 1/3.   Florida is about 3/8 of Southeast, just a bit less than Georgia and North Carolina combined.   Illinois is about 3/5 of Upper Midwest.   Texas is 4/5 of Texas-South Central.  Washington contains almost 1/2 of the Northwest population.  Hawaii has about 7/10 of the Pacific-Southwest population.  Hawaii is placed with the southwest states because it is too large to be included with Washington (Hawaii has the 4th largest Asian population, after California, New York, and Texas)

American Indian and Alaskan Native (AIAN) (4 representatives)


All 4 representatives are from multistate districts.  The states with more than 10% of the districts are indicated with the district label.  Minnesota, Florida, and Montana just miss qualifying.

About 15%, 11%, and 10% of Northeast are from New York, Michigan, and South Dakota, respectively.   45% and 17% of Southeast are from Oklahoma and North Carolina.  40%, 27%, and 14% of Southwest are from Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.   39%, 16%, and 16% if West are from California, Alaska, and Washington, respectively.

White plus American Indian and Alaskan Native (AIAN) (2 representatives)


This group is entitled to 1.52 representatives, which rounds to 2.  Both representatives are from multistate districts.  The states with more than 7% of the districts are indicated with the district label.

About 28%, 21%, 12%, and 9% of West are from California, Oklahoma, Texas, and Washington respectively.  The population of East are more dispersed with 9%, 8%, and 7% from Michigan, Florida, and Ohio, respectively.

White plus Asian (1 representative)


This group is entitled to 1.29 representatives, which rounds to 1.  The map illustrates a division into two districts.  California, Hawaii, and Washington form 55%, 12%, and 11% of West; while New York, Texas, and Florida form 11%, 10%, and 8% of east.

Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (1 representative)


This group is entitled to 1.16 representatives, which rounds to 1.  The map illustrates a division into two districts.  California and Hawaii have more than half of the total population so are placed into separate districts.  Roughly 44% of the population is Hawaiian, 15% Samoan, 10% Guamanian or Chamorro; and 17% other.   68% and 11% of the population of Hawaii-West are in Hawaii and Washington, respectively.  51% of California-East is in California.

[jimrtex]

Even though its only four seats I'd be very interested to see the AIAN map.  Also, are you planning on doing a Hispanic breakdown/map?

Yes.  I started out dividing Hispanic voters by race, but this might not make sense given the large number of Hispanics who indicate their race as "Other".

If I do use race in the same manner, the apportionment would be:

26 White
24 Other
2 White + Other
2 Black
1 AIAN

In this case, Asian and HIOPI Hispanics are included with Other race Hispanics.

[jimrtex]

So how would multiracial americans like me vote?

The census bureau lets persons designate whether or not they are/are not each of 6 racial classifications:

1) White;
2) Black;
3) Asian;
4) American Indian or Alaskan Native (AIAN);
5) Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; or
6) Other.

Each of these is independent of one another, so that there are 63 groups (2⁶ - 1 = 64).  I collapsed the smaller groups into other groups, until each group had enough population for at least one representative.  I used the following rules:

If the group had specified more than one race, and one of those was "other", the other would be dropped.  So if you were White, Black, AIAN, and Other, you would be treated as White, Black, and AIAN.

If the group had specified more than one race, and none of the races were "other", then the most common race was removed (White, Black, Asian, AIAN, NWOPI, in order of declining frequency).  So White, Black, and AIAN would be converted to Black and AIAN.

The final groups are (White, Black, Asian, AIAN, NHOPI, Other)

White: W

Black: B, BO

Asian: A, AO, BA, BAO, WBA, WBAO

AIAN: I, IO, AI, AIO, BAI, BAIO, BI, BIO, WBAI, WBAIO, WBI, WBIO, WAI, WAIO

NHOPI: Any of the 32 groups that include H.

Other: O

White+Black: WB, WBO

White+Asian: WA, WAO

White+AIAN: WI, WIO

White+Other: WO

If this system were implemented in the USA, you would probably have the opportunity to choose which voting roll you wanted to be placed on.  For apportionment purposes, the census population of each of the 63 groups would be distributed  on a pro rata basis using the distribution of voting roll designations.

[jimrtex]

White plus Other (1 representative)


This group, which is comprised of those who reported they were White plus some other race (where the other race is not Black, Asian, AIAN, or NHOPI), but not Hispanic is entitled to 1.13 representatives, which is rounded to 1.  This map illustrates two districts.  California and Texas represent 54% and 11% of West, while New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Michigan, Florida, and Massachusetts represent 24%, 10%, 10%, 9%, 9%, and 8% of East, respectively.

White plus Black (1 representative)

This group, which is comprised of those who reported they were White plus Black and no other race (except an other race), but not Hispanic is entitled to 1.12 representatives, which is rounded to 1.  This map illustrates two districts.  California, Texas, and Florida represent 25%, 10%, and 9%, of the West/South which is split about equally between the West and the South (Texas eastward), while New York, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Illinois represent 13%, 12%, 10%, 9%, and 9%, of North, respectively.  The North is split roughly evenly between the Midwest and the Northeast.  Including Cleveland and northeast Ohio with the Northeast would make the two parts equal.