Getting past the 20-post threshold. (Basically, a bunch of disjointed posts.)

[kcguy]

I’m currently classified as a newbie, which severely limits my posting ability.  (I can’t post images, for example.)  So in the interest of getting past 20 posts, I’m going to spend about 10 posts talking about myself.

I basically check a couple of websites daily—The Backlot (formerly AfterElton) and Facebook.  Also, I am often on YouTube—obsessions include videos about UK/US language differences and episodes of the genealogy TV show, “Who Do You Think You Are?”

The US Election Atlas falls into the category of websites I visit a couple of times a week, along with the website 538.

[kcguy]

I’ve always loved maps.  In college, I drew a county map of the US showing the results of the 1992 presidential election, thanks to some data from the World Almanac.

Because I thought county maps looked too hodgepodge, I also drew maps using what I thought were more cohesive units—i.e., television markets.  My friends made considerable fun of me for this.

It was also in college that I became aware of elections in other countries.  I remember watching CNN one morning, and I heard the election results from Canada—the majority Progressive Conservatives called an election and came in fifth.  I found this terribly fascinating, and I left my roommates a message on our apartment answering machine detailing this.  My friends made fun of me for this, too.

I also remember staying up late one night, working on a work-intensive but mind-numbing project.  After flipping through channels, I finally settled on Prime Minister’s Questions on CSPAN.  This was when I really became aware of foreign political geography, since every member was identified by the place name of his constituency.

[kcguy]

I like the concept that elections in most of the English-speaking world are less national than they are an accumulation of elections in dozens or hundreds of small idiosyncratic constituencies.  I like the fact that they make countries seem less monolithic and more an expression of the Federalist Papers’ view of a coalition of factions.

I’m a fan of Michael Barone’s Almanac of American Politics series.  Not only have I purchased several editions new, but I’ve also found several old editions at Friends of the Library sales.  All told, I own seven editions, including the original 1972 edition.  The oldest editions are the most interesting. 

I love reading the 1972 edition in particular.  This was before the 1970 redistricting, so the districts are less affected by gerrymandering than now, and they tend to be more cohesive.  It’s great to read how House elections were affected by such parochial issues as ethnic rivalries or water fluoridation.

I also own two editions of the Almanac of British Politics.  Although I’ve never owned any editions of the Canadian series, I did once drive to the University of Kansas library—an hour’s drive away—to read a copy of the post-1993 edition.

[kcguy]

I first became interested in redistricting in college when I heard about the Reno v Shaw lawsuit.  My college newspaper printed a map of NC-12, the “I-85 district”, and I thought that I could draw a better redistricting map than that.  To this day, I’ve always been slightly offended by the segregationist mentality of the Voting Rights Act.  [N.B.  Not that it matters, but I actually wrote this before the recent Supreme Court decision.]

I remember drawing maps of all the states, using television markets as the starting point for my congressional districts.  I got my population data from my trusty World Almanac, and I used a pocket calculator to run the numbers.  (I’ve always thought TV markets made sense, since a television market often forms a cohesive unit and since elections were fought on TV for decades anyway.)  Unfortunately, I don’t think I still have any of my maps from that era.

[kcguy]

One book I purchased and really enjoyed was “Bushmanders and Bullwinkles,” by Mark Monmonier.  It tackles a lot of issues related to election systems and constituency maps.  Among other things, the book introduced me for the first time to the Canadian and British electoral boundary commissions, and it provided me with footnotes to journal articles, where I could read more.

Its biggest effect on me, however, was its discussion on what I could best describe as a “hub-and-spoke” system.  The analogy was to a retail chain with a large of number of stores, trying to optimize its warehouse locations.  The idea is to locate the center of each congressional district, analogous to a warehouse, in such a way as to minimize travel distance to each constituent (store).

[kcguy]

At some point, I wound up drawing an entire set of congressional districts, based on the “hub-and-spoke” theory.  I wrote a computer program trying to determine, through trial and error, the most compact districts.

I’ve never been very internet-savvy, and my data from that time was rather primitive.  For example, Alabama was entitled to 7 congressional districts, so I divided the state into 700 units and grouped them into seven districts of 100 units each.  But I didn’t have easy access to data below the county level, so I mostly didn’t bother.  Baldwin County was entitled to 21 units, so I put all 21 at latitude 30.87, longitude 87.77.  (Based on a mapping CD, I guessed that the county courthouse in Bay Minette was at about that location.)  If a county was entitled to more than 100 units, I tried to break it down by municipality; if necessary, I tried to break down municipalities by post office, but I was mainly making random guesses at that point.

All the same, I liked the results I got from most of the maps.

[kcguy]

I’ve also become interested in foreign constituencies.  I remember going to the public library around 1999 and accessing the UK Parliamentary website.  I printed off a list of constituency names and tried to figure out where they were in a world atlas.  Some were easy—Bristol North—some were medium hard—Waveney—and some were incomprehensible—Elmet.

Eventually, as time went on, information became more accessible, and I was able to create short descriptions for myself of every district.  For example,
“Spelthorne.  Suburban territory southwest of Greater London and east of Windsor, including the towns of Staines and Sunbury.  Politics:  Conservative.”

I eventually made similar descriptions for the parliaments of Canada, Australia, and Germany, as well.

In general, I remain a fan of the British place-based naming of constituencies, as opposed to the Australian person-based system.  That being said, though, I’d rather be the Member of Parliament for Batman than the Member for Barking.

[kcguy]

Seeing that the British electoral boundary commission allowed much larger deviations from the electoral average than is common in the US interested me.  I was also interested in seeing how boundaries were affected by the addition of seats.

So I divided the entire United States into 2 districts.  Then 3, 4, etc.  I gradually got bored with the whole project at 147 units.  My maximum allowable deviation was 20%, with rare exceptions.

One thing that surprised me was how much this favored the Republicans.  From 13 districts on, Bush carried a majority of the districts based on the 2000 election, despite winning only 49.8% of the two-party vote.  Partly, this was because my system underrepresented larger counties—if a county had 85% the ideal population, a smaller county might be added to it, but if it had 115% the ideal population, no part would be removed.  But mainly the bias to the Republicans was due to Democratic votes tending to be much more concentrated.

For example, at 100 districts, Bush won 58 of them.

Bush districts:  Alabama North; Alabama South and Florida North West; Arizona East; Arizona West; Arkansas; Beaumont and Lake Charles; California Central; California South East; Carolina Mid; Carolina North East; Carolina South East; Carolina West; Colorado North; Dallas; Detroit North; Florida Central; Florida North East; Florida West; Fort Worth and Waco; Georgia Central; Georgia North; Georgia South; Hawaii and Alaska; Houston; Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota; Illinois North; Illinois South; Indiana North; Indiana South; Kansas; Kentucky; Louisiana South East; Miami and Florida South West; Michigan North; Mississippi; Missouri North West; Nebraska and South Dakota; Nevada and Oregon South; New Mexico and Colorado South; Ohio East; Ohio North West; Ohio South West; Oklahoma; Orange County; Pennsylvania East; Pennsylvania Mid; San Antonio and Texas South; San Diego; Tennessee East; Texas Gulf Coast and Austin; Texas North East and Louisiana North; Texas West; Utah and Wyoming; Virginia Rural; Virginia South East; Washington Inland; West Virginia and Kentucky East; and Wisconsin.

Gore districts:  Boston; Brooklyn and Staten Island; California North; Chicago Central; Chicago Suburban; Connecticut; Detroit South; Florida South East; Iowa; Long Island; Los Angeles Central; Los Angeles East; Los Angeles North and Santa Barbara; Los Angeles South; Maine and New Hampshire; Manhattan and the Bronx; Maryland North West; Maryland South East and Delaware; Massachusetts North West and Vermont; Massachusetts South East and Rhode Island; Michigan South; Milwaukee and Madison; Minnesota North; Minnesota South; Missouri South East; Newark; New Jersey North; New Jersey South; New York South East and Connecticut South West; New York State East; New York State West; Ohio North East; Oregon North; Pennsylvania South East; Pennsylvania West; Queens and Brooklyn East; Sacramento and Contra Costa; San Francisco and Oakland; San Jose and California Coastal; Tennessee West; Virginia North and the District of Columbia; and Washington Coastal.

Of those, only a handful went to one candidate by a margin of more than 2-to-1:  Boston (Gore 69%); Brooklyn and Staten Island (Gore 77%); Chicago Central (Gore 80%); Detroit South (Gore 68%); Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota (Bush 67%); Los Angeles Central (Gore 80%); Manhattan and the Bronx (Gore 86%); Queens and Brooklyn East (Gore 79%); San Francisco and Oakland (Gore 75%); Texas West (Bush 68%); and Utah and Wyoming (Bush 72%).

[kcguy]

On more general terms, I’ve also done a little with electoral college numbers.  For example, I’ve assigned a number to each state based on how it voted vis-à-vis the nation as a whole.  (They’re meant to be percentile numbers, but I don’t know enough about statistics to be sure I got my numbers right.)

Here are two states that I think exemplify the shifting of the parties’ bases over my lifetime.

New Jersey
1972:  45 (numbers above 50 represent voting more Democratic than the nation as a whole)
1976:  33
1980:  36
1984:  40
1988:  28
1992:  35
1996:  79
2000:  85
2004:  73
2008:  70
2012:  79

West Virginia
1972:  39
1976:  93
1980:  91
1984:  77
1988:  89
1992:  78
1996:  71
2000:  33
2004:  24
2008:  10
2012:  3

I also possess a VHS copy of CNN’s election night coverage for every 2 years since 1996.

[kcguy]

On a slightly different topic, I did a series of maps to show the settlement of Anglo North America.  Basically, I used the “Handy Book for Genealogists” to determine when counties were organized, and I then plotted the locations of all the courthouses.  (In most states, I figured the organization of the county to be a reasonable proxy of an area of minimal population density.)  Maps were for every 5 years.

I was pretty familiar with American history, so no real surprises.  I had assumed uniform westward expansion, though, and I hadn’t realized the degree to which Pennsylvania and Ohio were settled from south to north.

[kcguy]

Currently, I’m working on creating maps of each state divided into districts of approximately 100,000 people.  Despite not being media-savvy, I did get my hands on census-tract-level data, and I have it in an Access database.  I’ve written some Visual Basic modules to create districts as compact as possible.  I then copy and paste the latitudes and longitudes for each census tract into Excel and do a scatter plot.  Then I review the computer-generated list of the largest municipalities in each district and choose a name.

I really like this, because I get a sense not only of district boundaries but also of the distribution of population within the districts.  It also has disadvantages, though.  One disadvantage is that my districts are drawn without regard to political boundaries, so that suburbs sometimes get cut into pieces and absorbed into big-city districts.

Another disadvantage is that my program only looks at districts that are compact as the crow flies.  In a few instances, this creates some really bizarre districts.  One of my least favorites is a district that combines Escanaba with territory west of Traverse City.

This project has been really slow going.  I started in 2009, and I still haven’t done Florida, Georgia, Texas, or the entire West.

[kcguy]

And now let's see if I can post an image.

Here's an 8-district map of Missouri.  Basically, I just got annoyed, during Missouri's redistricting, by all the politicians saying it wasn't possible to put Columbia and Jefferson City in the same district, so I just wanted to prove it was possible.

[kcguy]

Didn't work, darn it.  Like I said, I'm technologically challenged.

(FOLLOW-UP:  OK, I got it to work.  Still not sure I'll remember how next time.)

[Bacon King]

you're supposed to put the url of the image in between the img tags

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

On a slightly different topic, I did a series of maps to show the settlement of Anglo North America.  Basically, I used the “Handy Book for Genealogists” to determine when counties were organized, and I then plotted the locations of all the courthouses.  (In most states, I figured the organization of the county to be a reasonable proxy of an area of minimal population density.)  Maps were for every 5 years.

I was pretty familiar with American history, so no real surprises.  I had assumed uniform westward expansion, though, and I hadn’t realized the degree to which Pennsylvania and Ohio were settled from south to north.

Cool!  Do you have any of these available to post?  If you do you that'd make an awesome thread.

[kcguy]

Cool!  Do you have any of these available to post?  If you do you that'd make an awesome thread.
[/quote]

I would have posted these eventually, but thanks for the encouragement and for the motivation to start sooner.

I should probably be able to begin posting in a few days.  I'll post under the History tab.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Cool!  Do you have any of these available to post?  If you do you that'd make an awesome thread.

I would have posted these eventually, but thanks for the encouragement and for the motivation to start sooner.

I should probably be able to begin posting in a few days.  I'll post under the History tab.
[/quote]

awesome, that's a good place for it.