US House Redistricting: Washington

[Alcon]

Welcome to the forum

I would look more closely at the growth patterns of Snoqualmie Pass and surrounding environs before you make that claim.  There's some resort property there but there always has been.  Where is this boom growth, Suncadia?  Hardly.  Suncadia casts a trivial number of votes.  Doesn't even have its own precinct.  There are a very negligible number of commuters.  Even the Hyak/Snoqualmie Pass area of the King-Kittitas border is clearly mostly retirees and resort folks, if you look at the voting rolls and Census data.  I doubt more than a handful of people make that gnarly, seasonally-dependent commute.

Yakima County is also frequently split along those lines in legislative districting, and yet we have never had an over-the-mountains district.  Ever.  Lewis and bgwah are right -- there is no good argument for that being the probabilistic outcome.  I'm also pretty sure television markets have little history in being considered a "community of interest" in Washington.

Inslee is running for Governor in 2012, so I doubt keeping Bainbridge in WA-1 will be such a big deal.

[Alcon]

I would look more closely at the growth patterns of Snoqualmie Pass and surrounding environs before you make that claim.  There's some resort property there but there always has been.  Where is this boom growth, Suncadia?  Hardly.  Suncadia casts a trivial number of votes.  Doesn't even have its own precinct.  There are a very negligible number of commuters.   Even the Hyak/Snoqualmie Pass area of the King-Kittitas border is clearly mostly retirees and resort folks, if you look at the voting rolls and Census data.  I doubt more than a handful of people make that gnarly, seasonally-dependent commute.

All of which is more than there is up at Satus Pass, an even higher elevation pass, on a two lane road vs. major interstate freeway.  Greater distance between population areas to boot! 

It is silly to divide up the Yakima Valley because some Seattle centric types don't want any icky EWers in their district.   A Snoqualmie Pass crossing makes the most geographic sense

Except...the 15th LD currently does through Satus Pass instead of dividing the mountains up by...oh, nevermind.  We'll see how the districts fall.  I certainly disagree with your probability claim, and I think your certainty falls into the category of absurd.  I don't know how many folks in Issaquah or Snoqualmie are "Seattle centric" types, or who suggested that, but I'm still waiting on your evidence of huge Seattle influence on the east side of Snoqualmie Pass.

[Alcon]

The app has been updated with 2010 census data, including racial data. It also has recent precinct boundaries, but no results. Maybe Alcon should contact Bradlee about that?

Done

[Alcon]

There's a cleaner way of doing WA-4 & WA-5 county-wise.  Put Okanogan and all of Adams in the 4th, and the only county split is Walla Walla, which now has its rural north in the 4th and everything else in the 5th.

As far as I can tell, without the Columbia River connection, there's no way to avoid completing slicing up the Yakima metro.

[Alcon]

By "without the Columbia River," I naturally meant "with the Columbia River," because I'm terrible.

I also agree -- None of the Snoqualmie connections I tried were anything but ridiculous, even if you accept that Cle Elum, Roslyn and Ellensburg have much to do with East King County.

That could work. I wanted to put the city of Walla Walla in WA-04 intentionally, though, so as to keep all of the agricultural areas with substantial Hispanic populations in one seat. (WA-04 is 32% Hispanic, WA-05 just 5%.) Could do the map that way, too, though.

I mostly did because the only part of Walla Walla County's agricultural areas notably more Hispanic than Walla Walla City, is Eureka, which I suppose could be included in WA-4 in lieu of something more northeastern.  I wouldn't be surprised to see any of these configurations, though.

[Alcon]

^^^

Sorry Sounder.  Especially in light of the Yakima City split, I might buy the I-90 connection if it were cleaner.  But I've tried, and it seems much dirtier.  Not only are the splits ugly, but there are also a lot of them.  Also, look how many areas you've completely shifted to new CDs, even in the otherwise easy-to-manage Eastside.

Index and Leavenworth are kind of cherrypicking the most similar East/West sides of that district.  It's more like Google Bellevue and then East Wenatchee...

[Alcon]

Sounder, dude, can you use the Edit function?  Otherwise I reply to one of your posts, and realize there's five more than were posted shortly after.  Thanks

I'm not sure what you mean by "Google is in the 1st and 7th"?  East Bellevue is in the 1st and East Wenatchee is somehow suddenly in the Seattle district?  what?

Besides that, I don't know what to say.  If you really feel that the Snoqualmie Pass area has more socioeconomic similarity to East King County (including Bellevue) than the Columbia River connection, that's fine.  I guess we'll find out on redistricting what the commission thinks.

An Olympia-North Grant County district.  Oy vey -- I think we're getting a little exotic here.  I'm working on my own version (I think it may end up superficially similar to bgwah's.)

[Alcon]

My friend who was pulling an all-nighter watched it periodically from 6 to 8 for me, and said she mostly saw big trucks.

[Alcon]

And despite even the 2000 census showing a number of Kittitas residents commuting to King, the commission still decided to create a Clark to Yakima legislative district instead of some sort of North Bend - Ellensburg district...

Where is the Clark to Yakima district in 2000?

He's alluding to the 15th legislative district, which spans from eastern Clark County to southern Yakima County.

[Alcon]

I'm kind of confused by something.  I just compiled Seattle precinct registered voter counts, versus 18+ Census population.  Most of it makes sense, but several wealthy neighborhoods have 100%+ registration rates.  One precinct has 426 people over eighteen and 506 registered voters.  Another supposedly had 98.8% of its 18+ voters cast a ballot in 2010, which suggests to me that it's not all people who've moved but not been marked inactive.  What's going on with that?  Is there some reason the Census would the 18+ count would underestimate (not overestimate) eligible voters?

[Alcon]

The precincts don't conform everywhere, because some precincts split Census blocks.  They conform fine in Seattle though, and are unchanged.  I think college+overseas may be the answer.  An 117% registration rate still seems out there, but I guess it's possible at the extreme.

[Alcon]

Do Washington election precincts conform to Census Bureau Voter Tabulation Districts?

Most don't.  I worked on the Block Boundary Suggestion Project prior to the 2000 Census, and most precincts outside of the most urban areas  do not meet Census Bureau standards of having physical boundaries (roads, streams, power line cuts, etc.).

Definitely true, but that's not a problem with almost all Seattle precincts.

I have a Dave's Redistricting App file of the current Washington LD's that might be helpful in redistricting.  Would anyone like me to find a place to put it online?

[Alcon]

Holy damn...LD redistricting is toughhh.

Eastern Washington was tricky enough:  Keeping the Tri Cities-Walla Walla reps intact, while not really messing up the Spokane incumbents, seems undoable.

I can't figure out how to deal with Clark County's population boom, short of down-shifting a bunch of districts, unless we move over a district.  I see no other way to compensate for a 37k shift.  You have to get into the Tacoma area before you get a district with enough size to start reducing that deficit.

[Alcon]

Not to mention, the area doesn't have much of a history of racial bloc voting, let alone "white vs. not" voting.  A pretty silly proposal, IMO.

[Alcon]

Fyi, the partisan numbers are wrong in any precinct that cast over 1,000 votes for a given candidate (shows up as 0) -- which happened in Benton, Grant, Jefferson, Pierce and Whatcom.

[Alcon]

Welcome aboard!    I think you may currently be our only active member from Seattle.

[Alcon]

LD maps sux

[Alcon]

I thought the VRA only applied to a given minority group, not minorities in general

[Alcon]

I'm calculating the districts as fast as I can (fairly approximately, tbh).  Based on my calculation of the 2nd, the 1st may be fairly nasty for the Dems:

2nd LD
Murray 55.4%
Rossi 44.6%

[Alcon]

Yep, 1st CD voted for Rossi:

1st CD
Murray 49.0%
Rossi 51.0%

[Alcon]

WA-8

Too lazy to be precise, but it's over 55% Rossi

[Alcon]

WA-10 appears to be at least 52% Murray

[Alcon]

PVIs from RRH.

1. R+1
2. D+7
3. R+3
4. R+13
5. R+6
6. D+5
7. D+29
8. R+3
9. D+16
10. D+5

I don't really recall how PVI is calculated, but can that really be right?  WA-10 more D than WA-03 is R, and barely less D than WA-05 is R?

And, yes, congrats CK.  sad congrats!

[Alcon]

On the LD level, the redistricting commission is currently fighting (a hostile conflict) over how minority to make the majority-minority 15th LD in Yakima County.

Spokane County, obviously, is also a point of conflict.

[Alcon]

Looking at the compromise map, I'm not totally clear on what the Dems traded for.  They seem to have gotten their ideal 15th LD and basically their ideal 6th LD too?