Ohio Redistricting Contest

[jimrtex]

You heard it here first, folks! 

On a related topic, is it just me or does the DistrictBuilder software tool really suck?  It looks pretty but I hate having to wait 15 seconds every time I add an area to a district for it to recalculate the stats (which I don't even use most of the time).  I'd have entered already if they just used DRA, but I don't think wrangling with DistrictBuilder is worth anybody's time. 

You haven't drawn any districts in cities yet, have you?

Do you think it is feasible to have two minority-majority VAP senate districts in Cuyahoga County?   The Black VAP is 28%.  If we assume no race-based age differential, then that is 358,434 Blacks.  2 senate districts equals 6 house districts of 116,530.  358,434 / (116,530 x 6) = 51.2%   That is we have to have 6 house districts that average 51% Black, and 5 house districts that are 0% Black.  Moreover, two of the White house districts have to be contiguous with Geauga county.

I have 4 suburban districts from Parma west plus the southern tier of towns that are under 3% Black.  I have 3 eastern suburban districts that are 52%, 31%, and 10% Black.  So I think you would have to run 6 house districts clear across Cleveland east to west and into the eastern suburbs.

Have you tried to preserve existing districts that are in the 95% to 105% range?

[dpmapper]

Not really.  I had decided not to bother unless their software improves.  But running with your numbers, it does seem impossible.  If blacks total 307.2% of a house district in Cuyahoga then you need to "waste" at most 7% of a house district of blacks outside of the two senate seats.  If your 4 south/west suburban house seats are 3% black each, that's already 12% "wasted" with one more seat to go.  Will shrinking the VRA seats by 5% each be enough to make up for this?  Seems unlikely...

[RBH]

and a likely law-defying Ohio Senate gerrymander

the catch in figuring this out is that the Ohio Senate Republicans hold a 23-10 majority

Districts in bold went from D to R in 2010, Districts in Italics are open in 2012/2014

SD1 (R): 59/39 JMC, 60/40 R (no change)
SD2 (R): 52/47 BO, 55/45 D (was 52/46 O and 56/44 D)
SD3 (R): 54/45 BO, 52/48 D (was 56/43 O and 53/47 D)
SD4 (R): 61/38 JMC, 62/38 R (no change)
SD5 (R): 54/45 BO, 53/47 D (was 58.5/40 O and 57/43 D)
SD6 (R): 55/44 JMC, 56/44 R (was 57/41 MC and 58/42 R)
SD7 (R): 65/34 JMC, 65/35 R (was 61/38 MC and 62/38 R)
SD8 (R): 59/40 JMC, 60/40 R (was 57/42 MC and 59/41 R)
SD9 (D): 73/26 BO, 67/33 D (was 74/24 O and 68/32 D)
SD10 (R): 56/43 JMC, 56/44 R (was 55.5/43 MC and 56/44 R)
SD11 (D): 70/28 BO, 74/26 D (was 72/26 O and 76/24 D)
SD12 (R): 64/34 JMC, 61/39 R (no change)
SD13 (R): 56/43 BO, 59/41 D (was 56/42 O and 61/39 D)
SD14 (R): 62/36 JMC, 57/43 R (was 61/37 MC and 55/45 R)
SD15 (D): 78/20.5 BO, 74/26 D (was 75/23.5 O and 74/26 D)
SD16 (R): 51/47.5 BO, 52/48 D (was 52/46 O and 51/49 D)
SD17 (R): 57/41 JMC, 52/48 D (was 58/40 MC and 51/49 R)
SD18 (R): 51/47 JMC, 51/49 R (no change)
SD19 (R): 58/40 JMC, 57/43 R (no change)
SD20 (R): 49.1/48.7 BO, 58/42 D (was 49/48 MC, 59/41 D)
SD21 (D): 85/14 BO, 85/15 D (was 86/13.5 O and 85.5/14.5 D)
SD22 (R): 53.5/44 JMC, 51/49 R (was 56/42 MC and 53/47 R)
SD23 (D): 62.5/36 BO, 67/33 D (was 64/34 O and 69/31 D)
SD24 (R): 51/47 JMC, 53/47 D (was 50.5/48 O and 55/45 D)
SD25 (D): 74/25 BO, 75/25 D (was 84/15 O and 84.5/15.5 D)
SD26 (R): 52/46 JMC, 53/47 R (was 55/43 MC and 55/45 R)
SD27 (R): 51/48 BO, 55/45 D (was 54/45 O and 59/41 D)
SD28 (D): 64/35 BO, 69/31 D (was 60/38 O and 66/34 D)
SD29 (R): 51/47 BO, 54/46 D (was 52/46 O)
SD30 (D): 49/48 JMC, 62/38 D (was 50/48 MC and 63/37 D)
SD31 (R): 58/40 JMC, 57/43 R (was 56/42 MC and 54/46 R)
SD32 (D): 58/40 BO, 67/33 D (was 59/39 O and 68/32 D)
SD33 (D): 58/40 BO, 71/29 D (was 60/38 O and 70/30 D)

17-16 Obama in districts, 19-14 Dem in average.

as for the Dem districts..

9 is 46.5/46.4 White (by 403). 15 is 45/43.9 White. 21 is 54.6/34.8 African-American, 25 is 50.8/43.2 White.

and pics

[jimrtex]

Not really.  I had decided not to bother unless their software improves.  But running with your numbers, it does seem impossible.  If blacks total 307.2% of a house district in Cuyahoga then you need to "waste" at most 7% of a house district of blacks outside of the two senate seats.  If your 4 south/west suburban house seats are 3% black each, that's already 12% "wasted" with one more seat to go.  Will shrinking the VRA seats by 5% each be enough to make up for this?  Seems unlikely...

I think it may be barely possible, if you include Hispanics.

My 6 districts are:

West Cleveland: 19% Black, 15% Hispanic
East - Central Cleveland: 62/10
South - Southeast Cleveland: 63/4
Far East Cleveland - Euclid - East Cleveland: 67/1
Southeast Cuyahoga: 52/2
East Central Cuyahoga: 31/2

Southeast Cuyahoga wraps around the SE corner of Cleveland from Garfield Heights to Shaker Heights.  You could boost it a bit higher if you included Oakwood or Highland Hills, but that would split the other other eastern suburban district or require splitting towns or cities.

I drew the two eastern Cleveland district east west, to avoid packing the Southeast district.

If you average the VAP you can get two senate districts of:

Cleveland: 48/10
Cuyahoga East: 50/2

So depending on interpretation there are 2, 1, or 0.  Both would include 2 majority Black House districts, so that might count as a plus.

The rules appear to give some emphasis to 11.07(D) of the constitution.  That messes up my plan since the two western Cuyahoga districts are within 5% of the ideal, and both come into Cleveland.   11.07(B) may give a preference to splitting Cleveland, since its wards can be used as the equivalent of towns.

[muon2]

Since a good number of posts have been established on this topic, I decided to separate it as an independent thread. I also added dpmapper's posts on the OH legislative map, since they provide useful background to the contest as well.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

I just tried using the contest tool, and yeesh, that is slow as crap. Not worth my time.

[muon2]

I just tried using the contest tool, and yeesh, that is slow as crap. Not worth my time.

/i tried it in the wee hours last night and it was no slower than I would expect for a tool that automatically recalculates a lot of values like compactness with each edit. However, it is abysmal this afternoon. I would expect more traffic on a weekend afternoon, and that may be part of the cause. My first recommendation would be to disable some time consuming computations except when requested by the user.

[jimrtex]

Can You See This?

I think this will let you see my House plan with the Cuyahoga districts and the 5 single county districts.  Does it?

There is an option to download a plan as a CSV file containing triplets of census blocks, districts, and (all values are 1).  So you may be able to create a plan in DRA and then upload it.

My house plan with just Cuyahoga and the 5 single-count districts was 42,501 lines, so a statewide plan is probably around 500,000 lines.

I think that it is definitely a substantive constitutional requirement to preserve existing districts when they are within 95% to 105% of the ideal.  § 11.07

There are 38 districts currently in this range.  In addition, Allen and Wood are existing single-county districts within the 90-100% range.  And it appears that all but a half dozen or so can be maintained.

[muon2]

Can You See This?

I think this will let you see my House plan with the Cuyahoga districts and the 5 single county districts.  Does it?

There is an option to download a plan as a CSV file containing triplets of census blocks, districts, and (all values are 1).  So you may be able to create a plan in DRA and then upload it.

My house plan with just Cuyahoga and the 5 single-count districts was 42,501 lines, so a statewide plan is probably around 500,000 lines.

I think that it is definitely a substantive constitutional requirement to preserve existing districts when they are within 95% to 105% of the ideal.  § 11.07

There are 38 districts currently in this range.  In addition, Allen and Wood are existing single-county districts within the 90-100% range.  And it appears that all but a half dozen or so can be maintained.

I can see the view just fine.

I'm puzzling over the rules minimal set of VRA districts. I can place the two black-majority Senate districts within Cuyahoga, but I can also place one entirely within Hamilton. I'm very close to getting one in Franklin as well. The black VAP gives 3.74 senate districts out of 33, so if possible one should try to have 3 or 4 black-majority districts for rough proportionality. Unfortunately I don't see how that fits in the rules, and it looks like it would be disadvantaged in the scoring.

[jimrtex]

Can You See This?

I think this will let you see my House plan with the Cuyahoga districts and the 5 single county districts.  Does it?

There is an option to download a plan as a CSV file containing triplets of census blocks, districts, and (all values are 1).  So you may be able to create a plan in DRA and then upload it.

My house plan with just Cuyahoga and the 5 single-count districts was 42,501 lines, so a statewide plan is probably around 500,000 lines.

I think that it is definitely a substantive constitutional requirement to preserve existing districts when they are within 95% to 105% of the ideal.  § 11.07

There are 38 districts currently in this range.  In addition, Allen and Wood are existing single-county districts within the 90-100% range.  And it appears that all but a half dozen or so can be maintained.

I can see the view just fine.

I'm puzzling over the rules minimal set of VRA districts. I can place the two black-majority Senate districts within Cuyahoga, but I can also place one entirely within Hamilton. I'm very close to getting one in Franklin as well. The black VAP gives 3.74 senate districts out of 33, so if possible one should try to have 3 or 4 black-majority districts for rough proportionality. Unfortunately I don't see how that fits in the rules, and it looks like it would be disadvantaged in the scoring.

Can you get the Hamilton senate district to be comprised of valid house districts?  The two westernmost suburban seats are within the 95%-105% range, and I think that Hamilton has to be paired with Clermont and Brown for the senate districts 7 in Hamilton and 2 in Clermont Brown.

So that gives one senate district with the two western house districts and one more

Then the 3 districts in Cincinnati and near northern suburbs.

And then one house district in the east that goes with Clermont-Brown.

Does that slide the VRA section too far east?

I found where the application does have an option to display total VAP, and so was able to calculate Black % VAP for my two Cuyahoga senate districts, which gives me 50.16% amd 48.05%.  I'm going have to redo the house districts to maintain the current house districts.  The two westernmost Cuyahoga districts qualify, but that leave Lakewood and a couple of others (maybe Brook Park and Brooklyn) in Cleveland districts.

[muon2]

Can You See This?

I think this will let you see my House plan with the Cuyahoga districts and the 5 single county districts.  Does it?

There is an option to download a plan as a CSV file containing triplets of census blocks, districts, and (all values are 1).  So you may be able to create a plan in DRA and then upload it.

My house plan with just Cuyahoga and the 5 single-count districts was 42,501 lines, so a statewide plan is probably around 500,000 lines.

I think that it is definitely a substantive constitutional requirement to preserve existing districts when they are within 95% to 105% of the ideal.  § 11.07

There are 38 districts currently in this range.  In addition, Allen and Wood are existing single-county districts within the 90-100% range.  And it appears that all but a half dozen or so can be maintained.

I can see the view just fine.

I'm puzzling over the rules minimal set of VRA districts. I can place the two black-majority Senate districts within Cuyahoga, but I can also place one entirely within Hamilton. I'm very close to getting one in Franklin as well. The black VAP gives 3.74 senate districts out of 33, so if possible one should try to have 3 or 4 black-majority districts for rough proportionality. Unfortunately I don't see how that fits in the rules, and it looks like it would be disadvantaged in the scoring.

Can you get the Hamilton senate district to be comprised of valid house districts?  The two westernmost suburban seats are within the 95%-105% range, and I think that Hamilton has to be paired with Clermont and Brown for the senate districts 7 in Hamilton and 2 in Clermont Brown.

So that gives one senate district with the two western house districts and one more

Then the 3 districts in Cincinnati and near northern suburbs.

And then one house district in the east that goes with Clermont-Brown.

Does that slide the VRA section too far east?

I found where the application does have an option to display total VAP, and so was able to calculate Black % VAP for my two Cuyahoga senate districts, which gives me 50.16% amd 48.05%.  I'm going have to redo the house districts to maintain the current house districts.  The two westernmost Cuyahoga districts qualify, but that leave Lakewood and a couple of others (maybe Brook Park and Brooklyn) in Cleveland districts.

Actually I bring the western Senate district along the river to get the numbers up for the black district in Hamilton. There are at least 2 reasonably compact black-majority house districts at that point.

In Cuyahoga my two Senate seats are 50.7 and 51.4% VAP. I haven't worked out the number of house seats yet. I kept municipal boundaries intact, but it leaves me with two county fragments. To meet the VRA I have to create fragments of the county or multiple municipalities. I assume that the VRA trumps the OH Constitution, but I'm not sure what the better solution is for the map.

[jimrtex]

Actually I bring the western Senate district along the river to get the numbers up for the black district in Hamilton. There are at least 2 reasonably compact black-majority house districts at that point.

In Cuyahoga my two Senate seats are 50.7 and 51.4% VAP. I haven't worked out the number of house seats yet. I kept municipal boundaries intact, but it leaves me with two county fragments. To meet the VRA I have to create fragments of the county or multiple municipalities. I assume that the VRA trumps the OH Constitution, but I'm not sure what the better solution is for the map.

Does the VRA require creation of majority-minority districts if that would violate neutral districting standards that are intended to produce compact and stable districts?

[muon2]

Actually I bring the western Senate district along the river to get the numbers up for the black district in Hamilton. There are at least 2 reasonably compact black-majority house districts at that point.

In Cuyahoga my two Senate seats are 50.7 and 51.4% VAP. I haven't worked out the number of house seats yet. I kept municipal boundaries intact, but it leaves me with two county fragments. To meet the VRA I have to create fragments of the county or multiple municipalities. I assume that the VRA trumps the OH Constitution, but I'm not sure what the better solution is for the map.

Does the VRA require creation of majority-minority districts if that would violate neutral districting standards that are intended to produce compact and stable districts?

The VRA requires that minorities have the opportunity to elect the candidates of their choice. Assessing a map requires looking at the totality of the circumstances. One factor identified by the court is that the number of districts where a minority can elect a candidate of choice should be roughly proportional to percentage of the minority's VAP. The court has also recognized that the rough proportionality cannot always be achieved due to other factors.

A state would have the burden to show that minorities can be denied their opportunity to maintain neutral principles. There are cases where neutral principles were insufficient because it could be shown that those principles had the effect of denying fair proportional representation to minorities. The Midwest Mapping Project that is a partner to the competition has a lengthy document that shows some inherent biases in neutral standards.

[jimrtex]

Federal district court decision following 2001 legislative redistricting

[jimrtex]

Video includes Franklin County and explains how townships are protected at the expense of Columbus

[muon2]

Federal district court decision following 2001 legislative redistricting

The key part of the decision (as noted by one of the concurring opinions) was on the ability to meet the Gingles test. In particular the court found that the plaintiffs could not produce a map with a majority-black-VAP district that complied with the OH Constitution as a remedy for the challenged districts. If my map is both constitutional and has the extra majority-black district(s) then that defect of the plaintiffs would be overcome.

[muon2]

Video includes Franklin County and explains how townships are protected at the expense of Columbus

Nice. I was in the room for that particular presentation. I suspect I'm in one of the Q & A segments.

[jimrtex]

Federal district court decision following 2001 legislative redistricting

The key part of the decision (as noted by one of the concurring opinions) was on the ability to meet the Gingles test. In particular the court found that the plaintiffs could not produce a map with a majority-black-VAP district that complied with the OH Constitution as a remedy for the challenged districts. If my map is both constitutional and has the extra majority-black district(s) then that defect of the plaintiffs would be overcome.

I'd interpret the constitutional requirements as:

(1) § 11.07(D) keep existing districts if feasible and consistent with § 11.03.   § 11.03 is the equal population requirement, including an explicit requirement of districts being in the range of 95% to 105% of the ideal size.  But this does not appear to require that those districts be the best in terms of building blocks.  Of the 40 districts in the 95% to 105% range, it would appear that it is feasible to maintain all but about a half dozen where that would force another district to violate the equal population standard.

(2) § 11.07(A), § 11.07(A) and § 11.09 create single-county districts.   It appears reasonable to create all 5 of these districts.  Collectively their population is equivalent to 4.965 districts so there is little population imbalance. 

It could be reasonable to split off a piece of Wood to go with Lucas, which would allow Erie and Ottawa to be paired and better population equality.  The alternative is to keep Wood whole with a 7.7% deviation, and combine Lucas, Erie, and Ottawa for 5 districts with an average deviation of -3.8%.   The difference is over 10%.

Lucas+Wood would be -2.7%, and Erie-Ottawa would be 1.7%.

(3) § 11.07 (A) Build districts from whole counties.  This is not possible in the larger counties.

(4) § 11.07 (b) Build districts from counties, townships, municipalities, and city wards.  In many cases cities and townships have been conformed.  So if we include all of a city, we are also including its coterminous township. 

But larger cities can not be formed into single districts.  This requires building districts from city wards.  But city wards tend to have equal population, which may make construction of districts from city wards alone difficult if not impossible.  No current Cleveland districts are entirely in the city.  The average population of Cleveland ward is equivalent to about 0.180 house districts.  5 wards equals 0.90, 6 wards equals 1.08.  It may be possible to get get inside the 0.95 to 1.05 limits based on population changes since 2000 (this is a silly provision since the ward boundaries will probably also be updated based pn the 2010 census.

[jimrtex]

Video includes Franklin County and explains how townships are protected at the expense of Columbus

Nice. I was in the room for that particular presentation. I suspect I'm in one of the Q & A segments.

I was interested in the grid maps, but couldn't find a definition of the algorithm.

[muon2]

Jimrtex, are you saying that maintaining existing conforming districts supercedes building districts from whole counties, etc? ThaT doesn't seem to match past practice. I could see recognizing districts that currently exist and can't be improved, but if one must keep all the conforming districts it would be a strong constraint. In any caSe that would work against the compedtition goals.

[jimrtex]

Jimrtex, are you saying that maintaining existing conforming districts supercedes building districts from whole counties, etc? ThaT doesn't seem to match past practice. I could see recognizing districts that currently exist and can't be improved, but if one must keep all the conforming districts it would be a strong constraint. In any caSe that would work against the compedtition goals.

11.07(D) says "In making a new apportionment, district boundaries established by the preceding apportionment shall be adopted to the extent reasonably consistent with the requirements of section 3 of this Article." 

11.03 says "The population of each house of representatives district shall be substantially equal to the ratio of representation in the house of representatives, as provided in section 2 of this Article, and in no event shall any house of representatives district contain a population of less than ninety-five per cent nor more than one hundred five per cent of the ratio of representation in the house of representatives, except in those instances where reasonable effort is made to avoid dividing a county in accordance with section 9 of this Article. "

11.09 is the special 90-110% rule for single-district counties.

So even though 11.07(D) is juxtaposed among the rules for using whole counties, etc.  The basis for continuation is solely population.  I think it would be pretty hard to claim that a district in the range of 95% to 105% was not "substantially equal" and was merely allowed.  That is too narrow of a splitting of 11.03.   It is not districts per se that are continued, but district boundaries.  There are a number of in-range districts that box in out-of-range districts (see Lorain and Mahoning counties).  In those cases the district boundaries would need to be changed.  I would not interpret 11.07(D) so narrowly as requiring continuation of parts of a district's boundaries.

But there are a number of in-range districts along the Indiana border where counties are split between two in-range districts.  It could be considered "reasonably consistent" with "substantial equality" to shift townships between the two districts to achieve greater equality.  My personal belief is that once you have split a county, you have sailed from the 5% safe harbor.

The competition goals are somewhat contradictory.  One is to demonstrate that "fairer" districts can be created.  But another is to produce districts that can be presented to the LAB (for legislative districts) or the legislature for congressional districts.  If the legislative districts don't comply with the constitution, the LAB would likely disregard them.

The rules (Page 6, #5 says that existing in-range districts should be kept.  It is unclear what "other legal requirements" means.  You possibly could argue that if a district on one side of township split is in-range, but that on the other side is out-of-range, that in drawing the new out-of-range district, you may not maintain the existing township split (if it can be avoided).

But the rule is contradictory to the scoring rules, since it is likely to preserve some existing county splits.  There was a proposed constitutional amendment which would have added "fairness" criteria, but would have removed the provision regarding existing districts.

[muon2]

The rules (Page 6, #5 says that existing in-range districts should be kept.  It is unclear what "other legal requirements" means.  You possibly could argue that if a district on one side of township split is in-range, but that on the other side is out-of-range, that in drawing the new out-of-range district, you may not maintain the existing township split (if it can be avoided).

This is similar to what I was thinking. I was willing to maintain any district that was within range and consisted of whole counties, or of whole towns for those districts entirely within a county. District 86 seems to be the only multi-county district in this category. Districts 16 and 18 in Cuyahoga, and district 54 in Butler fit the multi-town within one county description.

Senate districts 10 and 20 would meet the requirement, but I don't see any constitutional provision to maintain senate districts that already meet population requirements.

Edit: On closer inspection I see that North Olmstead has a slight bit that crosses into district 18. Perhaps its due to recent annexation. In any case it removes 16 and 18 from my list.

Edit 2: The split in Lake also meets the test. These are current districts 62 and 63. As to my previous edit, though I may not need to technically keep 16 and 18, I'm leaning towards their inclusion after shifting the boundary to reflect the tiny change in N. Olmstead.

[jimrtex]

The rules (Page 6, #5 says that existing in-range districts should be kept.  It is unclear what "other legal requirements" means.  You possibly could argue that if a district on one side of township split is in-range, but that on the other side is out-of-range, that in drawing the new out-of-range district, you may not maintain the existing township split (if it can be avoided).

This is similar to what I was thinking. I was willing to maintain any district that was within range and consisted of whole counties, or of whole towns for those districts entirely within a county. District 86 seems to be the only multi-county district in this category. Districts 16 and 18 in Cuyahoga, and district 54 in Butler fit the multi-town within one county description.

Senate districts 10 and 20 would meet the requirement, but I don't see any constitutional provision to maintain senate districts that already meet population requirements.

Edit: On closer inspection I see that North Olmstead has a slight bit that crosses into district 18. Perhaps its due to recent annexation. In any case it removes 16 and 18 from my list.

Edit 2: The split in Lake also meets the test. These are current districts 62 and 63. As to my previous edit, though I may not need to technically keep 16 and 18, I'm leaning towards their inclusion after shifting the boundary to reflect the tiny change in N. Olmstead.

My inclination would be to keep:

3 Wayne County
16,18 Cuyahoga
21,26,27 Franklin
29,30 Hamilton
36,37,38 Montgomery with the intent that there will be a shared house district with Greene
42 Summit
50 Stark the population is right for 2 districts inside.
53,54 Butler with the intent there will be a shared district with Warren
56, but not 58 Lorain   58 has 57 blocked in, plus Lorain+Huron equals 3 districts, which means chopping off the piece of Seneca.
Neither 59 or 61 Mahoning, et al.   59 has 60 blocked in, and when 60 expands, 59 will have to take the remnant of Mahoning.
62,63 Lake
The following 3 pairs split a county (Defiance, Auglaize, and Darke).   Since both side of the county split are in range, there is no need to redraw either district.
74+75
76+78
77+79
Not 81.  Counties to north need all of Ottawa, and change of 58 will allow creation of Sandusky-Seneca district.
82+83 split of Marion County can be kept
Not 84, splits of Greene and Clark County are wrong.
86 OK
None of 87,88,89 Split of Clermont will have to redone which will force elimination of split of Adams, which will force change in Lawrence split.
93+94 split of Washington will have to be redone which will in turn trigger a redo of the Muskingum split.
Not 98 Geuaga + a bit of Cuyahoga.   Initially, I was inclined to keep this, since it would permit keeping both Geauga and Ashtabula whole.  But I decided that it was a bit dubious to give Cuyahoga 11 whole districts and part of another, when it doesn't quite have enough for 11 districts.  Since Ohio anticipates splitting counties, it doesn't seem proper to treat it more like an apportionment.

Looking at whether it would be possible to work around the other districts, keeping 86 makes forces a bunch of additional splits.  Switching Adams for Pike allows creation of 8 whole county districts in southern Ohio (counting the Fairfield district and the Fairfield remnant as whole counties).

Delaware and Licking would make a good pairing for a senate district, but it doesn't work with the counties to the north.   I had originally anticipated two split counties, including one in Marion.  This would force elimination of 83, but would allow keeping of 82.  But since it is on the low side (95.7%) it would make sense to redo the boundary.

That reduces my list to

3 Wayne County
16,18 Cuyahoga
21,26,27 Franklin
29,30 Hamilton
36,37,38 Montgomery
42 Summit
50 Stark
53,54 Butler
56 Lorain.
62,63 Lake
74+75
76+78
77+79

Before OMOV, Ohio never (or rarely) changed its legislative districts since it did fractional apportionments of representatives and senates.  After the initial senate districts were defined the last county in Ohio was created from parts of counties that were in different senate districts.  Even though the senate districts were made up of whole counties, those senate districts split the new county.  So I think a strong case can be made foe keeping districts if at all possible.

[jimrtex]

On a related topic, is it just me or does the DistrictBuilder software tool really suck?  It looks pretty but I hate having to wait 15 seconds every time I add an area to a district for it to recalculate the stats (which I don't even use most of the time).  I'd have entered already if they just used DRA, but I don't think wrangling with DistrictBuilder is worth anybody's time. 

They seem to have improved it some.

You don't have to wait for the statistics to update before you start adding more, though you do have to wait for the district to update before you make another change.

[muon2]

On a related topic, is it just me or does the DistrictBuilder software tool really suck?  It looks pretty but I hate having to wait 15 seconds every time I add an area to a district for it to recalculate the stats (which I don't even use most of the time).  I'd have entered already if they just used DRA, but I don't think wrangling with DistrictBuilder is worth anybody's time. 

They seem to have improved it some.

You don't have to wait for the statistics to update before you start adding more, though you do have to wait for the district to update before you make another change.

I agree that the speed is much improved. Manipulation within a large city is now my slowest task, since it must be done by block.

I see that jimrtex has posted a ward file for Cleveland on district builder. Are those the boundaries that should be used to meet the constitutional requirements?