FL: Rereredistricting

[windjammer]

Can the Lt Governor break the tie?

[jimrtex]

This shows the regions that I used in my map.



This is a score sheet for determining excessive county splits. An apportionment region is entered for each county in Column F, and the summaries for the regions are calculated in columns H through N.

Florida Redistricting Scoring

For a more formal contest, there could be an outline map that someone could click on to assign a county to a region. There would also be contiguity checks.

Column A - County Name
Column B - County Population.
   B69 State Population
   B70 Quota
Column C - Normalized County Population (districts equivalent to population)
Column D - Whole number of districts for county.
  D69 Whole Single County Districts for state.
Column E - Fractional districts for county.
  E69 Total Fraction
Column F - Assigned region for county (you may be able to change these)

E69 is the maximum number of regions. It is coincidence that D69 and E69 are both 20.

Calculation Area

Column H - Region Party
Column I - Counties in Region
  I22 Counties assigned to all regions. Will equal 67 if all assigned.
Column J - Population of region in terms of number of districts.
  J22 Total population. Will equal 40.000 if all counties assigned.
Column K - Whole number of districts for region.
Column L - Deviation for region.
Column M - Total county surpluses for region.
Column N - Excess county splits.  Ideally 0, but may not be possible for all regions.
  N22 Total excess splits required. Lowest number wins.
Columns P&Q internal calculations.

Equality Metrics
 L24 Deviation range.
 M24 Average absolute deviation.
 N24 Standard deviations.

The metrics assume that the regions will be divided into equal districts. The average absolute deviation and standard deviation for my plan are equal to the precision shown (0.01%).

[jimrtex]

I've started listening to staff deliberations again. They had went and got the spreadsheet that permitted them to type in a number next to a county, and the spreadsheet would add the totals up. They then said that they might not remember the county names. They weren't sure they could bring materials into their clean room, but decided that a blank map could be used, which I think they were checking off with a pen.

They have not realized the benefit of using normalized population numbers - quite useful when trying to get near 100% of the ideal population, nor of using Paint to see the relationships among counties. They had worked their way across from the panhandle, and were playing around with the counties below Jacksonville, and tried to put Clay, St. Johns, Flagler, and Putnam in one district, and realized they were "80,000" over, but simply could not realize, that the first three without Putnam is almost a perfect fit. They are now trying to add Volusia in, and Marion, Citrus, and Hernando, and Sumter.

They also do not have the insight of the Texas Constitution for House districts, where the surplus from larger counties must be placed in a single-member district with other surpluses or a whole counties. This tends to result in working outward from larger counties.

Their artificially low range limit forced then to not place Volusia and Seminole together.

They then jumped down to the south, and did eventually stumble on to Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe, but it took them a long time to realize that it was 12 districts and not eleven. Their spreadsheet apparently starts with a deficit of one district, and they are trying to get to a deviation of zero. They did discover, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, and Sarasota.

They came up with Orange, Lake, Polk, Osceola for 5 districts, but did not realize that the total surplus of two, would require an additional split.

[muon2]

That staff description is consistent with what I have seen. The people given the task haven't typically thought about how to make a good map, and they stumble through the process. I have looked at making a county-level app to build regions, and think it would be a great tool for the next round of redistricting.

BTW, the link to the google doc spreadsheet isn't working for me.

[jimrtex]

That staff description is consistent with what I have seen. The people given the task haven't typically thought about how to make a good map, and they stumble through the process. I have looked at making a county-level app to build regions, and think it would be a great tool for the next round of redistricting.

BTW, the link to the google doc spreadsheet isn't working for me.

Does this work any better?

Florida Redistricting Spreadsheet

[windjammer]

Can the Lt Governor break the tie?

[muon2]

That staff description is consistent with what I have seen. The people given the task haven't typically thought about how to make a good map, and they stumble through the process. I have looked at making a county-level app to build regions, and think it would be a great tool for the next round of redistricting.

BTW, the link to the google doc spreadsheet isn't working for me.

Does this work any better?

Florida Redistricting Spreadsheet

Looks good.

I assume the use of 20 regions in the spreadsheet is the maximum given the number of large counties with more than 1 district. The existence of 18 regions then implies that there must be 2 county chops beyond the number needed to accommodate chops in large counties. The total chop count should then be the number of districts in large counties + the difference between the ideal and actual number of regions. If it is more than that then there are unneeded double chops. Did I read that right from the spreadsheet?

The FL interpretation would then require looking at where the chops occurred, since they count fragments, not chops. Is that also correct?

[Torie]

"The existence of 18 regions then implies that there must be 2 county chops beyond the number needed to accommodate chops in large counties."

I can't reason my way to understanding why the above is true. I know it has something to do with there being 20 seats associated with surplus population, and only 18 regions, but I can't quite connect the dots.

[muon2]

"The existence of 18 regions then implies that there must be 2 county chops beyond the number needed to accommodate chops in large counties."

I can't reason my way to understanding why the above is true. I know it has something to do with there being 20 seats associated with surplus population, and only 18 regions, but I can't quite connect the dots.

First, a region is a cluster of whole counties whose population is equal to a whole number of districts that are within the required variance of the quota.

Let's assume that in a large county there are as many whole districts as possible. Each large county can then be viewed as a small county with a population equal to the remainder after all the wholly contained districts are subtracted from the original population. When a large county is used in a region, the number of districts in that region increases by the number of whole districts in the large county.

So, let's make the reduction as described above. The FL map would now be represented by 67 counties all of which have population less than a whole district. There are initially 40 seats and enough large counties to hold 20 of those seats with excess population to spare. That leaves 20 seats to place on our map of 67 counties with suitably reduced populations.

The best we could do is find a configuration of county clusters such that all are within the required variance of the quota (taking into account extra seats for large counties). That configuration would be 20 regions, with multiple districts only for those clusters that include large counties. This configuration would only require chops in the large counties, so the chop count is minimized. That number is the ideal number of regions.

The variance requirements can force some clusters on the reduced map to have the population of two or more districts. The Bradenton-Sarasota region on our map above is an example of that. By lumping those counties together as a two district region it insures that one of those counties must be chopped. The same thing happens with the Ocala-Gainesville region. No other region requires a chop in a small county. Hence my statement that the 18 regions on the map represent two chops more than the minimum required by the large counties alone.

Each wholly contained district requires a chop of a large county and each region less than the ideal represents the chop of another county. Thus the minimum chop count for a plan is equal to the number of districts that can be placed wholly within large counties plus the difference between the ideal number of regions and the actual number of regions.

[Torie]

Is the short cut version of the explanation, that with only 18 regions, but 20 seats outside the multi district counties, there need to be two regions outside the big counties with two districts, thus necessitating two extra chops? If the populations balanced better, you would create more regions to avoid the extra chops, but you can't, so thus you are short the requisite number of regions to avoid the chops?

[muon2]

Is the short cut version of the explanation, that with only 18 regions, but 20 seats outside the multi district counties, there need to be two regions outside the big counties with two districts, thus necessitating two extra chops? If the populations balanced better, you would create more regions to avoid the extra chops, but you can't, so thus you are short the requisite number of regions to avoid the chops?

Works for me.

[jimrtex]

That staff description is consistent with what I have seen. The people given the task haven't typically thought about how to make a good map, and they stumble through the process. I have looked at making a county-level app to build regions, and think it would be a great tool for the next round of redistricting.

BTW, the link to the google doc spreadsheet isn't working for me.

Does this work any better?

Florida Redistricting Spreadsheet

Looks good.

I assume the use of 20 regions in the spreadsheet is the maximum given the number of large counties with more than 1 district. The existence of 18 regions then implies that there must be 2 county chops beyond the number needed to accommodate chops in large counties. The total chop count should then be the number of districts in large counties + the difference between the ideal and actual number of regions. If it is more than that then there are unneeded double chops. Did I read that right from the spreadsheet?

The FL interpretation would then require looking at where the chops occurred, since they count fragments, not chops. Is that also correct?

I'm thinking in terms of the Texas House. Under the Texas Constitution there are three types of districts:

(1) Counties with more than a quota, apportioned one or more representatives.
(2) Groups of counties with less than a quota apportioned a single representative.
(3) Counties with less than a quota and/or counties with a surplus apportioned a single representative.

Let's say that Big County has a population equivalent to 4.32 representatives. They would be apportioned four representatives (Type 1). Then the county would be treated as having a population equivalent to 0.32 representatives, and grouped with other counties to form a single representative district.

The system is correct for apportionment purposes, but not electoral purposes. The SCOTUS has ruled against the use of multi-member elections when it submerges racial minorities (and possibly political minorities). But the Texas Supreme Court has said there is no prohibition on election of representatives from single member districts. In effect, that is equivalent to the US House, where the US Constitution says nothing about congressional districts, but Congress has statutorily required them.

Type 3 districts (floterial) are also flawed electorally. In our example, all the voters in Big County would be able to vote for the representative. Big County only provided 32% of the population for apportionment purposes, but would have over 80% of the votes, which violates OMOV.

The Texas Supreme Court has harmonized the Texas and US Constitutions, by providing that the replacement district be comprised of an area that contains the surplus population, plus smaller counties and/or other surplus fragments. Since surplus is singular, this would seem to require use of a single surplus fragment.

This leaves:

(1) Counties with more than a quota, apportioned one or more representatives.
(2) Groups of counties with less than a quota apportioned a single representative.
(3*) Groups of surplus fragments and/or smaller counties apportioned a single representative.

Type 3* are, strictly speaking, unconstitutional, and so for larger counties, Type 1 is preferred as long as it does not violated OMOV. A county with a population between 3.8 and 4.2 districts would be apportioned 4 representatives, rather than 3 and a large fragment, or 4 and a small fragment (3.8 = 95% of 4, 4.2 = 105% of 4).

Any other arrangement, such as splitting a smaller county, or splitting a larger county into multiple fragments (eg 4.32 => 3 full + 0.81 fragment + 0.51) is unconstitutional.

We can take the districts entirely within a county and set them aside, and treat the population of the smaller counties and the surplus of the larger counties as being the whole population of the larger county. Ideally, we will combine these surpluses into regions comprised of whole counties with a population equivalent to one.

We can treat smaller counties as having zero whole districts and their entire population as a surplus. So now we are just combining surpluses into regions comprised of whole counties. Once our regions are complete we can add back the population of the districts wholly within counties within the region (and use this population in calculating deviation).

Let's take a look at a couple of counties in Florida. Pinellas has a population equivalent to 1.950 districts. That is, it has a population equivalent to one whole district and a surplus of 0.950. When we are building one of the regions, we use the 0.950 surplus to create the one-county region and add the one whole district back in.

In the spreadsheet, Column D is the number of whole districts for a county, and Column E is the amount of surplus. D69 and E69 are the statewide sums. It is coincidence that they are both 20. They do have to add up to the total number of seats, 40. And since one is 20, the other is 40 - 20, which is also 20.

Since ideally, the surpluses in each of our regions should add to one, then there should as many regions (20), as the total of the surplus.

There is a possible error in this calculation. Imagine Volusia had slightly less population so that it should have 1.027 senators, and that Seminole could be handled some other way than pairing with Volusia. The Volusia could be its own region, but have a surplus of essentially zero. Then there could be 20 regions made up of surpluses, plus the Volusia region for 21 total.

I suppose that counties with a small surplus could be treated as having a larger surplus and fewer whole districts (eg  4.13 would be divided as 3 + 1.13 rather than 4 + 0.13.

You will notice that in the spreadsheet, Column M is the sum of the county surpluses in the region, and not the fraction of the whole number. If the total surplus is close to 2 or some other whole number, then either the region can be divided into two or more whole-county regions, or a county will have to be divided (an excess fragment).

It is conceivable that there will be more cuts in a region than necessary. For example, in the Miami-Dade, Broward, Monroe region the calculation assumes that the surpluses from Miami-Dade and Broward will be placed in the same district as Monroe. This is is theoretically possible, and possibly even practical (eg my Miami-Dade-Monroe district includes all the western part of Miami-Dade up to the Broward line. But that area is unpopulated and we would be adding 300,000 persons from Broward to a district that stretches to Key West.

In my original thinking, I had fused Monroe to Miami-Dade.

But back to your original question, my regional plan would require two additional chops than the theoretical minimum. And since each chop creates a fragment, I have two extra fragments (three actually, because of Miami-Dade).

My county fragments are:
Duval 2
Volusia 2
Orange 3
Brevard 2
Polk 2
Hillsborough 3
Pinellas 2
Lee 2
Palm Beach 3
Broward 4
Miami-Dade 7 (rather than 6).
Sarasota 2
Alachua 2

Are they counting Sarasota and Alachua as being two fragments rather than zero?

[jimrtex]

That staff description is consistent with what I have seen. The people given the task haven't typically thought about how to make a good map, and they stumble through the process. I have looked at making a county-level app to build regions, and think it would be a great tool for the next round of redistricting.

They have started drawing the map. They spent a lot of time dividing Okaloosa. In the current map the extra population for the Pensacola district comes from the northern part of the county, so they were trying to come up with an alternative along the coast. They were adding in census blocks one by one from Eglin AFB's bombing range and not picking up any population.

They haven't really committed to regions, but have just recognized that, for example, that they can split the western panhandle into two districts with one county split.

[jimrtex]

Can the Lt Governor break the tie?

I don't understand your question.

[jimrtex]

Is the short cut version of the explanation, that with only 18 regions, but 20 seats outside the multi district counties, there need to be two regions outside the big counties with two districts, thus necessitating two extra chops? If the populations balanced better, you would create more regions to avoid the extra chops, but you can't, so thus you are short the requisite number of regions to avoid the chops?

The extra chops don't have to be in regions outside the big counties.

Imagine you had counties with population equivalent to 1.7, 1.5, and 0.8 districts. Combine them into a single region and you could create 4 districts. But their surpluses of 0.7, 0.5, and 0.8 add up to 2.0, which means another cut is needed.

Alternatively, to create four districts you need to make three chops. You can cut each county once, which means you have chopped the smallest county. Or you can cut one of the larger counties twice, and the other large county once. There would be an excess cut in one of the larger counties.

[Torie]

Is the short cut version of the explanation, that with only 18 regions, but 20 seats outside the multi district counties, there need to be two regions outside the big counties with two districts, thus necessitating two extra chops? If the populations balanced better, you would create more regions to avoid the extra chops, but you can't, so thus you are short the requisite number of regions to avoid the chops?

The extra chops don't have to be in regions outside the big counties.

Imagine you had counties with population equivalent to 1.7, 1.5, and 0.8 districts. Combine them into a single region and you could create 4 districts. But their surpluses of 0.7, 0.5, and 0.8 add up to 2.0, which means another cut is needed.

Alternatively, to create four districts you need to make three chops. You can cut each county once, which means you have chopped the smallest county. Or you can cut one of the larger counties twice, and the other large county once. There would be an excess cut in one of the larger counties.

Right, I understand that.

[windjammer]

Can the Lt Governor break the tie?

I don't understand your question.

Can the Lt Governor break the tie in the senate if there is a 20-20 vote? That might happen if the 20-20 plan is adopted. So that could give more importance to this office.
Like what happened in VA in 2013 when Northam won the Lt Governor race, basically giving the chamber to the democrats.

[MaxQue]

Can the Lt Governor break the tie?

I don't understand your question.

Can the Lt Governor break the tie in the senate if there is a 20-20 vote? That might happen if the 20-20 plan is adopted. So that could give more importance to this office.
Like what happened in VA in 2013 when Northam won the Lt Governor race, basically giving the chamber to the democrats.

No, in Florida Senate, a tied vote is considered as rejected.

[jimrtex]

Can the Lt Governor break the tie?

I don't understand your question.

Can the Lt Governor break the tie in the senate if there is a 20-20 vote? That might happen if the 20-20 plan is adopted. So that could give more importance to this office.
Like what happened in VA in 2013 when Northam won the Lt Governor race, basically giving the chamber to the democrats.

In Florida, the Lieutenant Governor is not part of the legislative branch. Under the constitution, he can be assigned duties by the governor, or by statute. Otherwise, he is just around to fill a gubernatorial vacancy.

[jimrtex]

The Coalition Plaintiffs (LWV/ACLU) have submitted a map.

It has 11 (or 12) extra chops vs. 2 (or 3) for the 5% Solution plan. The extra chop depends on how you score the Miami-Dade/Monroe district.

Coalition vs. 5% Solution.

Okaloosa: (2 parts) - Whole
Duval: (1 complete + 1 part) - Same.
Alachua: Whole - (2 parts)
Marion: (2 parts) - Whole [Marion split around Ocala is particularly ugly]
Volusia: (3 parts) - (1 complete + 1 part)
Brevard: (2 parts) - (1 complete + 1 part)
Orange: (2 complete + 1 part) - Same
Polk: (1 complete + 2 parts) - (2 parts)
Pasco: (3 parts) - 1 complee
Pinellas: (1 complete + 2 parts) - (2 complete)
Hillsborough: (1 complete + 3 parts) - (2 complete + 1 part)
Manatee: (2 parts) - Whole
Sarasota: Whole - (2 parts)
Lee: (1 whole + 1 part) - same
Palm Beach: (2 complete + 2 parts) - (2 complete + 1 part)
Broward: (3 complete + 2 parts) - (3 complete + 1 part)
Miami-Dade: (4 complete + 2 parts) - same

The 5% solution is better for 11 counties, and worse for two. Those two can be matched:

Marion v Alachua
Manatee v Sarasota

This makes the 5% solution better in a net 9 counties.

[muon2]

Have you submitted your plan?

[jimrtex]

Have you submitted your plan?

Yes. on Friday evening. I have received an autoresponse.

[jimrtex]

The Florida legislature is in the process of redrawing the state senate map, and are accepting public input. One of the maps was automatically drawn, and the algorithm is described here:

Autoredistricting

This is the map

Autoredistricted senate map (PDF)

The map might not be legal. The Florida Constitution forbids drawing a map with the intent of favoring or disfavoring a political party. Since an explicit constraint is partisan equity, this could be regarded as acting favorably toward a party.

It also ignores county and city boundaries and doesn't create or preserve the opportunity to elect for minority groups.

But it is an interesting approach.

[muon2]

The Florida legislature is in the process of redrawing the state senate map, and are accepting public input. One of the maps was automatically drawn, and the algorithm is described here:

Autoredistricting

This is the map

Autoredistricted senate map (PDF)

The map might not be legal. The Florida Constitution forbids drawing a map with the intent of favoring or disfavoring a political party. Since an explicit constraint is partisan equity, this could be regarded as acting favorably toward a party.

It also ignores county and city boundaries and doesn't create or preserve the opportunity to elect for minority groups.

But it is an interesting approach.

The panhandle looks strange. It looks like there is a water only connection to Pensacola. I note they have an unusual definition of contiguity which makes it not absolute so that it can be optimized, perhaps that led to the connection.

I also agree that the software is not compliant with the FL constitutional provisions.

[Torie]

JImrtex's work on this State Senate redistricting has just been absolutely incredible, just like it has been on Hudson stuff. And in Hudson, the powers that be are now very well aware of who Jimrtex is. I tell folks that he's my weapon of mass destruction.