Chops and Erosity - Mid Atlantic Madness
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Torie
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« on: February 28, 2015, 06:14:50 PM »
« edited: February 28, 2015, 07:37:54 PM by Torie »

This is what I originally had in Pennsylvania, on muon's advisement that UCC fans were no big thang:



(The 5/9 line, and those within Washington/Allegheny, can be tweaked.  Presumably erosity could still be improved.  In particular I probably would like to change the 5/9 line to what I used below, assuming that traveling chops are not a worry.)

This is basically what Western PA would have to look like if the UCC fan was a sliding scale:



The 12/18 line goes from I-chop to macrochop; you need another (I-)chop between 12 and 5 as well.  Oh, and inequality has risen since Allegheny/Butler is close enough but underpopulated.

I have not calculated erosity for this map as opposed to the earlier one: it's entirely possible that the vagaries of Allegheny County's roughly 50,000 boroughs means that this could even score better!  The proliferation of teensy-tiny towns around Pittsburgh, and the iron necessity that a district line navigate through them, makes Pittsburgh possibly the worst place in America to apply our current erosity measurement.  It certainly fails the eye test, I think, with that ugly duckling 18 (and 12 isn't much better).  Though I guess 3 is actually nicer. Tongue

If fans are just given a flat one point hit, then my earlier PA (which– to be clear– might be improvable in Allegheny) would still be competitive.  But, since its 12 and 4 both span the UCC boundary, it gets some number of hit points.  At least two, since the old 12 has Greene (38K) and Armstrong (68K) outside of the UCC, which I guess is fortuitously just under the threshold for three hit points.  (4 is more thoroughly split between UCC and non-UCC; Pittsburgh is roughly 3 and a half districts after all.)

In any case, it makes my old map have a worse chop count, and I don't think it really deserves that.

Here is my entry for PA, playing by Mike’s rules (e.g., the search for the non UCC county chop – in this case “finding” poor UCC-less Carbon County for the chop hit), which I am posting below Train’s for comparison purposes in a new thread for the Mid-Atlantic states. I drew my map entirely independently of his, but I see our maps are the same in NE PA, and the York County based CD. Great minds think alike, particularly when the population miraculously just works, as in the case of the Scranton area CD. Smiley  Addendum: Well there was this invisible spillover of PA-10 into PA-05, so my map alas must have a microchop to make PA-05 fit within the population parameters, and the Carbon County chop now just barely works, and needs to be split to avoid a subunit chop (unless I missed something). I hate when that happens! So I have one more chop than Train (unless I missed a way to do it, absent going Train's route). Sad I guess I am just left to savor the additional erosity points he racks up to avoid his little microchop. For me, it's worth it, but that is just me.

The precise lines in SE PA, were dictated by trying to minimize inter-county highway cuts, while avoiding subunit chops. Job one of course is to first identify the county seat, and work from there. I was unable to find a way for PA-08 to chop into Philly without a ward chop, so it chopped into Montco instead. And I needed to make sure PA-02 took in downtown Philly where the courthouse is, to avoid a highway cut from Montco by having the most direct highway able to go from Norristown to the Philly courthouse, without ever touching PA-01. This aspect of the game is the most time consuming. The way PA-16 juts into Chester County was no accident either. Finally, the cut into Montco by PA-06 was designed to avoid a traveling chop, which I think should be prohibited, and thus I won't due it.


 
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Torie
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« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2015, 07:56:00 AM »
« Edited: March 01, 2015, 04:45:03 PM by Torie »

Never mind. I solved the problem. Erosity is better too. Smiley I also fixed the lines in Chester County to make them less erose, and moved PA-07 into Philly to get rid of a macrochop by PA-06 into Montco (albeit pushing PA-07 out of the competitive category politically), which also lost a highway cut in Chester Coutny. I found a stray precinct in PA-18, which when eliminated, pushed it over the population limit, so PA-14 needed to take in another town, to get the populations back in line.

So I have one more chop than Train, coming out of Allegheny County.




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traininthedistance
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« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2015, 06:21:41 PM »

You have an unnecessary UCC chop in the west: five districts enter the Pittsburgh UCC when only four are necessary. I believe chopping into Chester does the same thing– unless we've decided that single county UCCs get the penalty point instead (in which case I guess it's a wash)?  And PA-8 can in fact go into Philly with no split wards– some erosity, admittedly, but I don't think any more than you incur in Montgomery there.
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Torie
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« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2015, 07:10:37 PM »
« Edited: March 01, 2015, 07:37:10 PM by Torie »

You have an unnecessary UCC chop in the west: five districts enter the Pittsburgh UCC when only four are necessary. I believe chopping into Chester does the same thing– unless we've decided that single county UCCs get the penalty point instead (in which case I guess it's a wash)?  And PA-8 can in fact go into Philly with no split wards– some erosity, admittedly, but I don't think any more than you incur in Montgomery there.


I have an extra chop in Allegheny, as I admit, but don't you have an extra chop in Philly (you having both PA-07, while I have just PA-07, in lieu of my extra chop into Chester? The PA-08 is 80,000 folks or so, and Philly needs a total chop in of about 120K. So you have two chops into Philly, one in Montco,  one in Chester and one in Berks, and I have one in Philly, two in Chester, and and two in Montco. Yes, if chopping into single county UCC's does not get an extra penalty point, then you have a higher score in the Philly UCC too. But currently under Mike's rules, it does.

Oh, but I forgot that PA-09 enters the Pittsburg UCC. My bad. How inconvenient. PA 09 needs to chop more so that PA-03 does not. I don't like that rule in this case! Tongue  Ah, if we just had incremental penalties, and nothing more. But we don't.

I don't think any chops should be treated differently myself, no matter the status of the county, with the sole function of UCC's, multi county UCC's, being aggregation (hopefully with incremental penalties for the aggregated size of the chop in). So if you have the requisite pack in a UCC, no extra penalty beyond the county chops themselves, but if you do, then you count the size of the chop due to the failure to pack for extra penalty points. We both have the minimum pack of 3, so no extra penalty points in the Pittsburg UCC.

But right now, all that matters is whether a county is, or is within, a UCC, or not, and the incentive is to chop non UCC counties wherever one can. Not a good system, but in this instance, in PA,  it works pretty well. There is absolutely no reason to prefer chopping Berks in lieu of Chester, and it makes splendidly bad public policy, that no state will enact - ever. There needs to be a level playing field, applicable to all, and just based on the numbers of people involved.
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2015, 07:40:19 PM »

You have an unnecessary UCC chop in the west: five districts enter the Pittsburgh UCC when only four are necessary. I believe chopping into Chester does the same thing– unless we've decided that single county UCCs get the penalty point instead (in which case I guess it's a wash)?  And PA-8 can in fact go into Philly with no split wards– some erosity, admittedly, but I don't think any more than you incur in Montgomery there.


I have an extra chop in Allegheny, as I admit, but don't you have an extra chop in Philly (you having both PA-07, while I have just PA-07, in lieu of my extra chop into Chester? The PA-08 is 80,000 folks or so, and Philly needs a total chop in of about 120K. So you have two chops into Philly, one in Montco,  one in Chester and one in Berks, and I have one in Philly, two in Chester, and and two in Montco. Yes, if chopping into single county UCC's does not get an extra penalty point, then you have a higher score in the Philly UCC too. But currently under Mike's rules, it does.

Oh, but I forgot that PA-09 enters the Pittsburg UCC. My bad. How inconvenient. PA 09 needs to chop more so that PA-03 does not. I don't like that rule in this case! Tongue  Ah, if we just had incremental penalties, and nothing more. But we don't.

I don't think any chops should be treated differently myself, no matter the status of the county, with the sole function of UCC's, multi county UCC's, being aggregation (hopefully with incremental penalties for the aggregated size of the chop in), but I digress. But right now, all that matters is whether a county is, or is within, a UCC, or not, and the incentive is to chop non UCC counties wherever one can. Not a good system, but in this instance, in PA,  it works pretty well. There is absolutely no reason to prefer chopping Berks in lieu of Chester, and it makes splendidly bad public policy, that no state will enact - ever. There needs to be a level playing field, applicable to all, and just based on the numbers of people involved.

Well, if we are counting single-county UCC chops as a penalty point then I'd either need to a) find a county to chop other than Cambria in my second map, or b) advocate for the superiority of my first map, fans be damned.

Honestly, I'm inclined instead to advocate for Map #1.  Fans, yes, be damned.  It's the best Western PA out there (modulo tinkering with the lines in Allegheny and/or possibly moving the PA-12 chop into Allegheny) no matter the penalty points.  It's certainly an argument that said penalty points should not scale up to relative infinity, as you are advocating for.

My subjective feeling is that the five SEPA counties do actually count more than Berks, which is kind of a mutt county on the outer orbit of the Philly region without as much of an identity as the Delaware Valley or Amish Country.  But yes we are getting into judgments too fuzzy to be admitted into the scoring system, and there are also certainly other places where giving single-county UCCs the same protection as multi-county ones is important to help preserve good options.  (This is another lesson I gleaned from my abortive attempt at Florida.  The Orlando area/Space Coast is really hairy, and you do kinda want to leave open the option to preserve those beach counties.)  I'll have to tinker around with those lines some more, but it's entirely possible that splitting Lancaster, which neither of us have done, might end up being the winner.
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #5 on: March 01, 2015, 07:48:55 PM »

The precise lines in SE PA, were dictated by trying to minimize inter-county highway cuts, while avoiding subunit chops. Job one of course is to first identify the county seat, and work from there. I was unable to find a way for PA-08 to chop into Philly without a ward chop, so it chopped into Montco instead. And I needed to make sure PA-02 took in downtown Philly where the courthouse is, to avoid a highway cut from Montco by having the most direct highway able to go from Norristown to the Philly courthouse, without ever touching PA-01. This aspect of the game is the most time consuming. The way PA-16 juts into Chester County was no accident either. Finally, the cut into Montco by PA-06 was designed to avoid a traveling chop, which I think should be prohibited, and thus I won't due it.

I'd also opine that this "aspect of the game", such as it is, seems pretty artificial.  I haven't paid much attention to it with my own metro-area lines, and I am unlikely to see a particularly compelling reason to start doing so.
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muon2
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« Reply #6 on: March 01, 2015, 09:46:30 PM »

The precise lines in SE PA, were dictated by trying to minimize inter-county highway cuts, while avoiding subunit chops. Job one of course is to first identify the county seat, and work from there. I was unable to find a way for PA-08 to chop into Philly without a ward chop, so it chopped into Montco instead. And I needed to make sure PA-02 took in downtown Philly where the courthouse is, to avoid a highway cut from Montco by having the most direct highway able to go from Norristown to the Philly courthouse, without ever touching PA-01. This aspect of the game is the most time consuming. The way PA-16 juts into Chester County was no accident either. Finally, the cut into Montco by PA-06 was designed to avoid a traveling chop, which I think should be prohibited, and thus I won't due it.

I'd also opine that this "aspect of the game", such as it is, seems pretty artificial.  I haven't paid much attention to it with my own metro-area lines, and I am unlikely to see a particularly compelling reason to start doing so.

When there is no macrochop in a county there needs to be some modest constraints on the chops and erosity. That means assigning each prior link before the chop to one of the pieces created by the chop. Since the primary highway link exists as the proxy for an economic community of interest, it is least arbitrary of many choices to make that assignment. erosity is reduced when those links are kept inside a district. My observation is that if one is making reasonable choices (like the many Lapeer chops) they will tend to respect much of those primary links.

When there is a macrochop a different regime is present. Now all highway links across a county line count as proxies for the town-scale CoIs. It is still the case that erosity is reduced when those links are kept internal to a district. But in the macrochop case, there is potentially more than one link between two counties to consider.
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muon2
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« Reply #7 on: March 01, 2015, 10:43:54 PM »
« Edited: March 01, 2015, 10:48:26 PM by muon2 »

So let me talk more about links using Torie's plan for Chester. First, it looks like Honey Brook twp along the Lancaster line is chopped. I'm not sure how Torie wants to fix that, but I'll treat it like it's all in CD 16.


Chester is macrochopped, so the county seats don't matter. Instead one looks at the townships on the perimeter that have state and federal highways.

Along the Lancaster border:
West Nottingham twp: PA 272
Lower Oxford twp: PA 472
Upper Oxford twp: PA 896
West Fallowfield twp: no connection
West Sadsbury twp: PA 41, PA 372, US 30 (three highways, but only counts as one link to the twp)
West Caln twp: PA 340
Honey Brook twp: US 322, PA 10 (These enter through two different precincts of Honey Brook. They count as one link if the twp is not chopped, but each would count separately if it is chopped like above. Note PA 10 )

Other than Honey Brook, Torie has kept all the links within CD-16, so they don't add to erosity. That chopped twp would add a point of erosity between CD-6 and 16.

That gives an example of how I build a map of all the links to determine erosity. It's time consuming for each macrochopped county. The good part is that if I save it, I don't have to do it again.
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Torie
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« Reply #8 on: March 02, 2015, 07:58:33 AM »
« Edited: March 02, 2015, 08:46:49 AM by Torie »

Fixed. My bad. I hate when that happens. (Plus Brandywine TWP is confusing, because it has labels like West Brandywine West and East, rather than precinct numbers, but the Chester Twp map I found clarifies it is one Twp., so thus a bit more erosity.)

Anyway, I am coming to the opinion regarding UCC's, that you just have the pack rule (if you don't you get penalty points), plus the whole county severance penalty point for multi-county UCC's when there is more of a CD cover in the UCC than the minimum, and call it a day. And perhaps we should just be content to just use Mike's erosity test for macrochops (the idea being not to punish them, but to punish erose macrochops (thus my idea of penalty points only if the intra-county cuts exceed the minimum for the size of the chop). All chops count the same. KISS. UCC's won't be eviscerated or hideously fanned out given the pack rule, and the severance rule, and because if one chops into them, you still get chop points, so it won't be done gratuitously. I think maybe that is enough. It creates minimum complexity, and basically treats all counties the same when it comes to chops (which I think the public will demand).

The suggested UCC rule would however favor Train's map over mine however in the Pittsburg UCC, because his severance of Fayette does not cause the minimum cover to be exceeded, while mine does. The CD that chops of Fayette must also do the other cut, due to the trapped Washington County anomaly, such that if PA-18 takes Washington County in along with Fayette to keep Fayette in the UCC, it causes that CD to cease to be a pack CD. Do we want a trapped county exception to the pack rule?  Tongue

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muon2
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« Reply #9 on: March 02, 2015, 08:48:17 AM »

I'm not quite sure what is suggested then for UCCs.

It sounds like single county UCCs get no special treatment, and I lean that way, too.

It sounds like the new UCC pack rule is favored. I'm not sure it's as strong as some think, but it's worth continued consideration.

For the cover rule it sounds like Torie is suggesting looking at the cover of a UCC and if it exceeds the minimum and the number of county chops plus 1 in that UCC a penalty occurs. For example in my favorite guinea pig of Lansing, a cover of 2 would only get a penalty if the county chop count is 0, but not otherwise. I think this breaks down when one is able to exactly fit a number of districts into a subset of the counties in a UCC (like 4 CDs in Wayne+Macomb+St Clair), or if there is a double-spanning chop (perhaps for the VRA).

The simple cover rule still seems to me to be the strongest of the UCC rules, and I would not shy away from the double penalty it incurs (unless one wants to revisit microchops). Nonetheless, I'll keep working on the MI map set and try to put together a comprehensive study.
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Torie
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« Reply #10 on: March 02, 2015, 09:07:24 AM »
« Edited: March 02, 2015, 09:12:53 AM by Torie »

I'm not quite sure what is suggested then for UCCs.

It sounds like single county UCCs get no special treatment, and I lean that way, too.

It sounds like the new UCC pack rule is favored. I'm not sure it's as strong as some think, but it's worth continued consideration.

For the cover rule it sounds like Torie is suggesting looking at the cover of a UCC and if it exceeds the minimum and the number of county chops plus 1 in that UCC a penalty occurs. For example in my favorite guinea pig of Lansing, a cover of 2 would only get a penalty if the county chop count is 0, but not otherwise. I think this breaks down when one is able to exactly fit a number of districts into a subset of the counties in a UCC (like 4 CDs in Wayne+Macomb+St Clair), or if there is a double-spanning chop (perhaps for the VRA).

The simple cover rule still seems to me to be the strongest of the UCC rules, and I would not shy away from the double penalty it incurs (unless one wants to revisit microchops). Nonetheless, I'll keep working on the MI map set and try to put together a comprehensive study.

I would apply the cover rule only to penalize whole county severances if  the minimum cover is exceeded, not chops. You can chop away at UCC's like you can in any other county, with no special penalty other than the chop itself - at least until you chop to the point that you interfere with a pack CD by shoving it out beyond the borders of the UCC and causing it to cease being wholly contained in the UCC.

Thus, you can chop away at the Lansing UCC, but if you sever off Clinton in its entirety (so no chop penalty per se), then my rule applies, because the minimum cover of the UCC is 1 CD, and now two are covering it, so thus a penalty point for the whole county severance. We rely just on chop penalties ordinarily, but with multi-county UCC's, we need to avoid being able to chop them up by whole counties, without penalty, unless the population numbers dictate that. I think my cover rule here nicely addresses the competing considerations, until of course, as is so often the case, somebody points out that I have missed something. Smiley
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muon2
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« Reply #11 on: March 02, 2015, 10:23:44 AM »
« Edited: March 02, 2015, 10:45:22 AM by muon2 »

I can apply your suggestion just fine in 0 pack UCCs like Lansing. It's very hard to write a rule that applies in multi CD UCCs. You can look at a large county like Livingston and say that's bad. It becomes hard when there's a large UCC with a small excess and some small counties on its periphery. I would rather encourage a chop of a whole county rather than a chop into a larger county. If this doesn't make sense I'll find a state with an example (after I've finished scoring the MI maps on that thread).

Why not just have a double penalty for a chop into a county in a large UCC that also exceeds the cover minimum?
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Torie
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« Reply #12 on: March 02, 2015, 10:57:56 AM »
« Edited: March 02, 2015, 10:59:46 AM by Torie »

I can apply your suggestion just fine in 0 pack UCCs like Lansing. It's very hard to write a rule that applies in multi CD UCCs. You can look at a large county like Livingston and say that's bad. It becomes hard when there's a large UCC with a small excess and some small counties on its periphery. I would rather encourage a chop of a whole county rather thana chop into a larger county. If this ddoesn't make sense I'll find a state with an example.

Why not just have a double penalty for a chop into a county in a large UCC that also exceeds the cover minimum?

I understand your concern, but the additional potential erosity points would tend to discourage the chop (overwhelmingly so, if all intra-county cuts count, rather than just those cuts over the minimum as I propose). And you can sever the county without penalty, if both the cover and pack maximum/minimum are not violated (to deal with close cases, one might perhaps consider the pack/cover rule as not being violated if the amount of the otherwise pack CD outside the UCC, or the additional CD in the UCC, caused by the whole county severance, is less than a macrochop in size). Anything beyond a macrochop pad to me is just traducing the whole meaning of UCC's, and is a huge loophole.

You final point is about having two smaller chops into a UCC being penalized as opposed to one larger chop (the infamous Lansing example again). I don't think that should be penalized myself, beyond the chop penalty itself. That is protecting UCC's over other counties without good reason in my view.  
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #13 on: March 02, 2015, 12:46:02 PM »
« Edited: March 02, 2015, 12:47:38 PM by traininthedistance »

The suggested UCC rule would however favor Train's map over mine however in the Pittsburg UCC, because his severance of Fayette does not cause the minimum cover to be exceeded, while mine does. The CD that chops of Fayette must also do the other cut, due to the trapped Washington County anomaly, such that if PA-18 takes Washington County in along with Fayette to keep Fayette in the UCC, it causes that CD to cease to be a pack CD. Do we want a trapped county exception to the pack rule?  Tongue

I think you mean Greene, not Washington?  Also, which of my maps are you referring to?  Well, both of them are superior to yours when it comes to cover, but the second (worse IMO) one does better on pack.

I would be interested to see the scores comparing Torie's map and mine at some point, when the chance arises.  I'm not sure that Torie's map even saves much in the way of erosity, since two macrochops of Allegheny is liable to get punished (IMO, just on the eye test, that Washington-Westmoreland 18 in both Torie's map and my second one is not so hot either).

After fiddling around some more, I'm not sure I really can much improve the Allegheny lines for my first map anyway.  Lowering erosity in SEPA, though, could still potentially happen.
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« Reply #14 on: March 02, 2015, 02:21:46 PM »

I can apply your suggestion just fine in 0 pack UCCs like Lansing. It's very hard to write a rule that applies in multi CD UCCs. You can look at a large county like Livingston and say that's bad. It becomes hard when there's a large UCC with a small excess and some small counties on its periphery. I would rather encourage a chop of a whole county rather thana chop into a larger county. If this ddoesn't make sense I'll find a state with an example.

Why not just have a double penalty for a chop into a county in a large UCC that also exceeds the cover minimum?

I understand your concern, but the additional potential erosity points would tend to discourage the chop (overwhelmingly so, if all intra-county cuts count, rather than just those cuts over the minimum as I propose). And you can sever the county without penalty, if both the cover and pack maximum/minimum are not violated (to deal with close cases, one might perhaps consider the pack/cover rule as not being violated if the amount of the otherwise pack CD outside the UCC, or the additional CD in the UCC, caused by the whole county severance, is less than a macrochop in size). Anything beyond a macrochop pad to me is just traducing the whole meaning of UCC's, and is a huge loophole.

You final point is about having two smaller chops into a UCC being penalized as opposed to one larger chop (the infamous Lansing example again). I don't think that should be penalized myself, beyond the chop penalty itself. That is protecting UCC's over other counties without good reason in my view.  

Actually my final point was to consider the distinction between small UCCs like Lansing and large UCCs greater than one CD. I can see the value of treating small UCCs like single county UCCs and your rule would be easy to implement for those. I think it is in this class that you have most observed the problems of overprotecting the UCC.

I think problems occur in larger UCCs where there will be a lot of combinations that make a rule for whole county chop vs chop in vs chop out hard to construct. For those I think the separate cover and pack penalties remain the best tool, and I think they would also best pass your public square test by their simplicity.
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« Reply #15 on: March 02, 2015, 05:37:37 PM »
« Edited: March 02, 2015, 05:40:25 PM by Torie »

I can apply your suggestion just fine in 0 pack UCCs like Lansing. It's very hard to write a rule that applies in multi CD UCCs. You can look at a large county like Livingston and say that's bad. It becomes hard when there's a large UCC with a small excess and some small counties on its periphery. I would rather encourage a chop of a whole county rather thana chop into a larger county. If this ddoesn't make sense I'll find a state with an example.

Why not just have a double penalty for a chop into a county in a large UCC that also exceeds the cover minimum?

I understand your concern, but the additional potential erosity points would tend to discourage the chop (overwhelmingly so, if all intra-county cuts count, rather than just those cuts over the minimum as I propose). And you can sever the county without penalty, if both the cover and pack maximum/minimum are not violated (to deal with close cases, one might perhaps consider the pack/cover rule as not being violated if the amount of the otherwise pack CD outside the UCC, or the additional CD in the UCC, caused by the whole county severance, is less than a macrochop in size). Anything beyond a macrochop pad to me is just traducing the whole meaning of UCC's, and is a huge loophole.

You final point is about having two smaller chops into a UCC being penalized as opposed to one larger chop (the infamous Lansing example again). I don't think that should be penalized myself, beyond the chop penalty itself. That is protecting UCC's over other counties without good reason in my view.  

Actually my final point was to consider the distinction between small UCCs like Lansing and large UCCs greater than one CD. I can see the value of treating small UCCs like single county UCCs and your rule would be easy to implement for those. I think it is in this class that you have most observed the problems of overprotecting the UCC.

I think problems occur in larger UCCs where there will be a lot of combinations that make a rule for whole county chop vs chop in vs chop out hard to construct. For those I think the separate cover and pack penalties remain the best tool, and I think they would also best pass your public square test by their simplicity.

Actually I think my rule is simple - almost elegant really. Whether it has drawbacks in actual implementation remains to be seen with examples (which I can't envision at the moment, but no doubt your most active and creative mind is trying to do so Smiley ). In big UCC's, nest CD's per the pack rule, and if you sever off a county, if that sucks another CD in per the cover rule, that is penalized. If it doesn't, well something has to be cut off from the UCC, and if it is a whole county, that's great, and no penalty. Other than that, all chops are the same, everywhere, subject to triggering the intra-county erosity test, which while complicated, is necessary, to avoid mischief in how the chop in densely populated areas is effected. But with my unnecessary cuts only get a penalty rule, if you draw the chop cleanly, almost by definition you won't get hit too much with penalty points.
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muon2
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« Reply #16 on: March 02, 2015, 10:33:22 PM »
« Edited: March 03, 2015, 12:45:13 AM by muon2 »

I can apply your suggestion just fine in 0 pack UCCs like Lansing. It's very hard to write a rule that applies in multi CD UCCs. You can look at a large county like Livingston and say that's bad. It becomes hard when there's a large UCC with a small excess and some small counties on its periphery. I would rather encourage a chop of a whole county rather thana chop into a larger county. If this ddoesn't make sense I'll find a state with an example.

Why not just have a double penalty for a chop into a county in a large UCC that also exceeds the cover minimum?

I understand your concern, but the additional potential erosity points would tend to discourage the chop (overwhelmingly so, if all intra-county cuts count, rather than just those cuts over the minimum as I propose). And you can sever the county without penalty, if both the cover and pack maximum/minimum are not violated (to deal with close cases, one might perhaps consider the pack/cover rule as not being violated if the amount of the otherwise pack CD outside the UCC, or the additional CD in the UCC, caused by the whole county severance, is less than a macrochop in size). Anything beyond a macrochop pad to me is just traducing the whole meaning of UCC's, and is a huge loophole.

You final point is about having two smaller chops into a UCC being penalized as opposed to one larger chop (the infamous Lansing example again). I don't think that should be penalized myself, beyond the chop penalty itself. That is protecting UCC's over other counties without good reason in my view.  

Actually my final point was to consider the distinction between small UCCs like Lansing and large UCCs greater than one CD. I can see the value of treating small UCCs like single county UCCs and your rule would be easy to implement for those. I think it is in this class that you have most observed the problems of overprotecting the UCC.

I think problems occur in larger UCCs where there will be a lot of combinations that make a rule for whole county chop vs chop in vs chop out hard to construct. For those I think the separate cover and pack penalties remain the best tool, and I think they would also best pass your public square test by their simplicity.

Actually I think my rule is simple - almost elegant really. Whether it has drawbacks in actual implementation remains to be seen with examples (which I can't envision at the moment, but no doubt your most active and creative mind is trying to do so Smiley ). In big UCC's, nest CD's per the pack rule, and if you sever off a county, if that sucks another CD in per the cover rule, that is penalized. If it doesn't, well something has to be cut off from the UCC, and if it is a whole county, that's great, and no penalty. Other than that, all chops are the same, everywhere, subject to triggering the intra-county erosity test, which while complicated, is necessary, to avoid mischief in how the chop in densely populated areas is effected. But with my unnecessary cuts only get a penalty rule, if you draw the chop cleanly, almost by definition you won't get hit too much with penalty points.

I'm afraid this is actually pretty opaque to me. I highlighted the part that I can't parse. The sucks in vs if it doesn't feels arbitrary, though I'm sure it's not supposed to be. What determines if a whole county chop or a partial chop due to a different district is the one that goes over the cover limit? I strongly support a rule that makes no priority among districts that cross beyond the UCC; they should all be measured the same.

I may need a stepwise procedure. I'm that kind of guy. Smiley
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muon2
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« Reply #17 on: March 03, 2015, 11:43:44 AM »

I was looking at the two plans for SE PA, and they seem to illustrate the trade of UCC penalties for erosity.



The seven county region in SE PA almost precisely accommodates 7 CDs, so it's hard to imagine a top plan that doesn't take advantage of that. Since there are 7 CDs and no whole county subregions that form a whole number of CDs there should be at most 6 county chops, and both plans have that. The size of Lancaster, Chester, and Berks require that at least one of those counties gets a macrochop. Macrochops increase erosity both internally and on their perieters, so it's advisable to keep the macrochops internal to a region if lower erosity is a goal. Torie's plan does that by using Chester for the macrochop.

OTOH, the Philly UCC doesn't include Lancaster or Berks which are single county UCCs. The PHilly UCC has a cover of 6 and a pack of 5. Train's map adheres to that, but Torie's map increases the cover of Philly by 1. Using my MI model for scoring, neither would get a pack penalty, Torie's plan gets a cover penalty, and train's plan gets a single county UCC penalty.

I'm not a fan of the single county UCC penalty (though I'm tracking it since it's come up so many times), so let me ignore it for now. That leaves train's plan penalty-free, but with I suspect a higher erosity due to the shift of the macrochop out to Berks. Torie's plan is probably lower erosity when a detailed count is made. That actually seems like a reasonable trade to me, since this is the kind of flexibility I'd like to see. I'll put the task of a detailed score on my to do list to see how much trade there is.
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #18 on: March 03, 2015, 09:09:22 PM »

Here is an alternative Philadelphia for my PA map:



Inequality is higher- -2,331 and +1,709.  Presumably erosity is lower by a couple points.  None of the districts other than 1 and 2 are any different (I think that's in fact the only way to draw Bucks-Philly without splitting wards).

I suspect this would be preferred in situations where there is some amount of inequality leeway.
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Sol
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« Reply #19 on: March 03, 2015, 10:25:26 PM »

Is there any way to draw it with only 3 districts in Philly?
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muon2
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« Reply #20 on: March 04, 2015, 12:18:25 AM »
« Edited: March 04, 2015, 11:02:56 AM by muon2 »

Is there any way to draw it with only 3 districts in Philly?

Bucks plus Philly is more than 30K over the population of 3 CDs. If Bucks goes into Philly to gain the 80K it needs, then something else has to go into Philly, too. To get 3 CDs in Philly it is better to have Bucks get population from Montco and let Delco go into Philly alone.

Here's an example for SE PA that seeks to minimize erosity. It avoids the tri chop of Chester with a simple (non macro) chop of Berks. The cost is a penalty for both the cover and pack of the Philly UCC. But that's what the trade off is for.



Edit: The image has a precinct in Souderton, Montco that should be in CD 4. If it is swapped with the adjacent precinct for Telford then CD 4 is -1942 and CD 5 is +174 in population devaiation with no change to cut erosity.
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #21 on: March 04, 2015, 07:29:36 PM »

Is there any way to draw it with only 3 districts in Philly?

Of course there is– but at the cost of an extra chop elsewhere (most likely Montgomery, as per Torie's map). 

One thing I do like about my map is that it doesn't make Bucks take multiple disconnected bites out of Montgomery, a situation that used to be a no-go with the old way of counting chops, and still seems suboptimal.
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muon2
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« Reply #22 on: March 04, 2015, 10:06:12 PM »

Is there any way to draw it with only 3 districts in Philly?

Of course there is– but at the cost of an extra chop elsewhere (most likely Montgomery, as per Torie's map). 


Indeed. With seven CDs in seven whole counties there will be six chops. They can be placed in various counties but the total count is fixed.
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #23 on: March 23, 2015, 01:51:59 PM »
« Edited: March 23, 2015, 02:13:19 PM by traininthedistance »

Torie's speculation regarding Nevada, Arizona, etc. in the SCOTUS thread has inspired what is surely a treat for all y'all Republicans:







All town lines are followed as best as possible; most of the lines are merely unincorporated CDPs here. The VRA is easy to please: 5 and 7 are both BVAP majority (55% and 54%), and 4 is now BVAP plurality (with 41%) as well.  The bites that 1 and 6 take out of Baltco and Montco respectively are I-chops, all others are macro.

Yes, all those UCC penalty points are well and truly unavoidable.  That I was able to find any whole county groups– and Baltimore/Howard/AA, which luckily is entirely within one UCC, seems like the only one around– should ensure this map rockets to the top of the line, chop-wise at least.  Erosity, who knows.  It's gotta be pretty decent on that count, too.  Possibly you could tinker around the edges to improve it, but the general thrust of this map seems pretty optimal.
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muon2
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« Reply #24 on: March 23, 2015, 09:24:18 PM »

Macrochops are defined by the whole county, not by the individual pieces. If the remainder after removing the largest district fragment is greater than 5% of a district then it's a macrochop. Based on that both Montco and Baltco are macrochopped and would have erosity measured based on county subdivisions as applied to all district fragments.
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