Based on 2012 results only, which state gerrymander flipped the most seats?

[muon2]

I have a question about the Muon2 scoring system. Assuming that you have a macro-chop into a county, what is the penalty, if any, for one locality chop that is neither a macro-chop nor a micro-chop, as opposed to none, in that county? Each locality, whether chopped or not, generates road cuts between it and adjacent localities in another CD, so what is the extra penalty for the chop itself within one locality? Does it matter if the locality chop is a micro-chop or not? Irrespective of whether a county macro-chop is in play, do micro-chops that exist (having already used up the 0.5% population variance wiggle room), generate a road cut, be it in a locality, or a county chop?

The question has some importance with respect to choosing between my two NJ maps. Assuming the best Dem skew is 2 rather than 3 for NJ, than pushing NJ-02 into the toss-up category gets a better skew, but it also seems to require a locality chop in a macro-chopped county. Thus the question as to whether there is an additional penalty for doing that. If not, and the two maps otherwise score the same, than the skew score will act as the tie breaker.

If there is a macrochop in a county then the subdivisions of the county are treated like counties themselves. Imagine that a macrochop causes the county to be replaced by its subdivisions. Chops into those subdivisions activated by a macrochop are treated just like any other county chop. The only difference between subdivisions and counties is that connections between subdivisions within a county  may consider any public road, not just numbered state and federal highways.

Perhaps I should create a sticky thread with the rules for reference.

[Torie]

I have a question about the Muon2 scoring system. Assuming that you have a macro-chop into a county, what is the penalty, if any, for one locality chop that is neither a macro-chop nor a micro-chop, as opposed to none, in that county? Each locality, whether chopped or not, generates road cuts between it and adjacent localities in another CD, so what is the extra penalty for the chop itself within one locality? Does it matter if the locality chop is a micro-chop or not? Irrespective of whether a county macro-chop is in play, do micro-chops that exist (having already used up the 0.5% population variance wiggle room), generate a road cut, be it in a locality, or a county chop?

The question has some importance with respect to choosing between my two NJ maps. Assuming the best Dem skew is 2 rather than 3 for NJ, than pushing NJ-02 into the toss-up category gets a better skew, but it also seems to require a locality chop in a macro-chopped county. Thus the question as to whether there is an additional penalty for doing that. If not, and the two maps otherwise score the same, than the skew score will act as the tie breaker.

If there is a macrochop in a county then the subdivisions of the county are treated like counties themselves. Imagine that a macrochop causes the county to be replaced by its subdivisions. Chops into those subdivisions activated by a macrochop are treated just like any other county chop. The only difference between subdivisions and counties is that connections between subdivisions within a county  may consider any public road, not just numbered state and federal highways.

Perhaps I should create a sticky thread with the rules for reference.

Well then if a subdivision chop in such instance counts the same as a county chop, doing a subdivision chop in a macro chopped county is near fatal to one's score. That still leaves the issue of whether micro-chops (after using up the 0.5% wiggle room), generate road cuts. I assume that they do, but I just want to confirm that.

[muon2]

I have a question about the Muon2 scoring system. Assuming that you have a macro-chop into a county, what is the penalty, if any, for one locality chop that is neither a macro-chop nor a micro-chop, as opposed to none, in that county? Each locality, whether chopped or not, generates road cuts between it and adjacent localities in another CD, so what is the extra penalty for the chop itself within one locality? Does it matter if the locality chop is a micro-chop or not? Irrespective of whether a county macro-chop is in play, do micro-chops that exist (having already used up the 0.5% population variance wiggle room), generate a road cut, be it in a locality, or a county chop?

The question has some importance with respect to choosing between my two NJ maps. Assuming the best Dem skew is 2 rather than 3 for NJ, than pushing NJ-02 into the toss-up category gets a better skew, but it also seems to require a locality chop in a macro-chopped county. Thus the question as to whether there is an additional penalty for doing that. If not, and the two maps otherwise score the same, than the skew score will act as the tie breaker.

If there is a macrochop in a county then the subdivisions of the county are treated like counties themselves. Imagine that a macrochop causes the county to be replaced by its subdivisions. Chops into those subdivisions activated by a macrochop are treated just like any other county chop. The only difference between subdivisions and counties is that connections between subdivisions within a county  may consider any public road, not just numbered state and federal highways.

Perhaps I should create a sticky thread with the rules for reference.

Well then if a subdivision chop in such instance counts the same as a county chop, doing a subdivision chop in a macro chopped county is near fatal to one's score. That still leaves the issue of whether micro-chops (after using up the 0.5% wiggle room), generate road cuts. I assume that they do, but I just want to confirm that.

Yep, all chops count for road cuts. Well unless they divide a county such that there are no local roads to connect the pieces.

[muon2]

The court seems to find that there is no VRA requirement for VA, or at best if there is a requirement expert testimony says that a district can perform for the minority if it is Dem and has 36% BVAP. VA had a large SKEW from my list above (R 5), so I wanted to see how a muon2 neutral map would perform.

I ignored the VRA, but used the UCC and MCCs for VA. Cover rules were met everywhere. Pack rules were violated in Richmond, but it requires a county chop to meet them. Pack rules aren't quite followed for Norfolk, but that's because the peninsula has to attach to Va Beach unless the connection rules are changed to allow the seasonal ferry at Tangier Is.



The districts line up 2D, 3d, 1e, 1r, 4R for a SKEW of 0. The even one is CD-10 and is actually D+1. This map is a 2 and a half seat swing and would likely be a three seat swing in practice in a neutral election year.

As it turns out CD-3 is 38.5% BVAP and D+7, so based on the experts it would be likely to elect the candidate of choice for the black population.

[Torie]

I have a question about the Muon2 scoring system. Assuming that you have a macro-chop into a county, what is the penalty, if any, for one locality chop that is neither a macro-chop nor a micro-chop, as opposed to none, in that county? Each locality, whether chopped or not, generates road cuts between it and adjacent localities in another CD, so what is the extra penalty for the chop itself within one locality? Does it matter if the locality chop is a micro-chop or not? Irrespective of whether a county macro-chop is in play, do micro-chops that exist (having already used up the 0.5% population variance wiggle room), generate a road cut, be it in a locality, or a county chop?

The question has some importance with respect to choosing between my two NJ maps. Assuming the best Dem skew is 2 rather than 3 for NJ, than pushing NJ-02 into the toss-up category gets a better skew, but it also seems to require a locality chop in a macro-chopped county. Thus the question as to whether there is an additional penalty for doing that. If not, and the two maps otherwise score the same, than the skew score will act as the tie breaker.

If there is a macrochop in a county then the subdivisions of the county are treated like counties themselves. Imagine that a macrochop causes the county to be replaced by its subdivisions. Chops into those subdivisions activated by a macrochop are treated just like any other county chop. The only difference between subdivisions and counties is that connections between subdivisions within a county  may consider any public road, not just numbered state and federal highways.

Perhaps I should create a sticky thread with the rules for reference.

Well then if a subdivision chop in such instance counts the same as a county chop, doing a subdivision chop in a macro chopped county is near fatal to one's score. That still leaves the issue of whether micro-chops (after using up the 0.5% wiggle room), generate road cuts. I assume that they do, but I just want to confirm that.

Yep, all chops count for road cuts. Well unless they divide a county such that there are no local roads to connect the pieces.

Thank you. I assume an internal subdivision cut in a non macro-chopped county, just generates more road cuts with adjacent subdivisions, is that right (I have one of those in Mercer County)? I found the solution for South Jersey, to get the skew right. No subdivision chops, and it should score well on erosity as well.

Now the only problem, is that I chopped Perth Amboy (sorry Jon Bon Jovi) to avoid a chop of a county, and apparently that counts the same as a county chop, in a macro-chopped county, so it may be there are other maps out there with the same chop count. It's quite inconvenient in Jersey in same places that have large subdivisions, that have shapes that make them impossible to bypass, or involve traveling chops. Jersey given that, and that most of its counties are in UCC areas, creates walls everywhere. So it is the search for the least bad alternative. I really wish computer programs were written to handle this sort of drudgery. It's kind of beneath my pay grade now.



I did manage to get rid of a tiny internal subdivision micro-chop in macro-chopped Bergen County, while still making the populations work, which had a very narrow objective function of about 500 people (both NJ-08 and NJ-09 were at the edge of being too short in population, so both needed to be close to equally short).  Ugly little affair isn’t it?  

 

[traininthedistance]

You could argue that a black CD is not needed, but I'd say that it's pretty easy to draw a fairly compact Latino-influence CD that's over 50% vap.You will of course have to split all sorts of munis and counties, but it's clear that the courts prioritize VRA stuff over such things.

50% total population is not too hard, but 50% VAP actually is quite difficult (and 50% CVAP harder still), and requires a fair amount of ugliness, such as multiple bridges through mostly-unpopulated and/or white-majority areas in the Meadowlands and vicinity, and/or splitting many munis in Hudson with a snake down the river to get supermajority-white Hoboken out of there.  In other words... it won't be "fairly compact" anymore.

The current NJ-8 is majority-Hispanic (though I don't know about VAP, and almost certainly it's sub-50% on CVAP), but its previous incarnation was only something like 47% Hispanic, and the courts were obviously fine with that:

[Torie]

You could argue that a black CD is not needed, but I'd say that it's pretty easy to draw a fairly compact Latino-influence CD that's over 50% vap.You will of course have to split all sorts of munis and counties, but it's clear that the courts prioritize VRA stuff over such things.

50% total population is not too hard, but 50% VAP actually is quite difficult (and 50% CVAP harder still), and requires a fair amount of ugliness, such as multiple bridges through mostly-unpopulated and/or white-majority areas in the Meadowlands and vicinity, and/or splitting many munis in Hudson with a snake down the river to get supermajority-white Hoboken out of there.  In other words... it won't be "fairly compact" anymore.

The current NJ-8 is majority-Hispanic (though I don't know about VAP, and almost certainly it's sub-50% on CVAP), but its previous incarnation was only something like 47% Hispanic, and the courts were obviously fine with that:

The Courts may be fine with that, but they are clearly not demanding it under the VRA, so under Muon2 metrics, we just ignore what the Courts allow. We are only worried about what they require.

[Torie]

I discovered Washington Township in Mercer County (which is the right size to swallow whole), so I was able to get rid of the Princeton chop there.

[traininthedistance]

I discovered Washington Township in Mercer County (which is the right size to swallow whole), so I was able to get rid of the Princeton chop there.

It's now called Robbinsville (they changed the name since there are something like six Washington Twps. in the state), and uh I discovered it years ago. (And posted a map using it in this very thread, in fact.)

[Torie]

Train's prediction that NC's gerrymander involved a 2 seat flip to the Pubs, appears to be correct.  Below is the Muon2 metric map. Remarkably. Outside the mandatory chops in Mecklenberg and Wake Counties, remarkably given the Jimrtex urban cluster obstacle course there is only one other county that is chopped.  Who would have imagined that poor little Rockingham County would end up being tri-chopped?

There are no Section 2 CD's involved, but even without the free pass to pack black Democrats, the map is still skewed to the Pubs by one more seat than would be "fair." The skew based on 2008 results should be two seats to the Pubs, rather than three.

[Torie]

In other news, assuming CT's rather defunct county lines are used, the Dems bagged a half seat out of the map. CT-05 should be a toss up CD, rather than a Dem CD.



It is still my best guess, that nationally, the gerrymandering game in the 2010 census cycle garnered about 10 extra seats for the Pubs.

[Sol]

Train's prediction that NC's gerrymander involved a 2 seat flip to the Pubs, appears to be correct.

There are a few issues with this map.

Firstly, the SE can be made better. The Lumbee community is split along the county line between Robeson and its adjacent neighbors in your map, and you can easily draw whole county districts with a low deviation that put the Lumbee back together. Obviously there's no VRA case, but that seems to be fairer to me, even with an additional county chop--the Lumbee lack a reservation, but, like most other native American groups, they are a clear and obvious CoI. Here's an example of a whole county 6th and 7th.



The 8th is negative -284 and the 7th is -187.

Additionally, there have been concerns raised in the past about linking Gaston County to the other parts of the Charlotte UCC just with a bridge through Mecklenburg. I'm not sure if that matches up with the standards you are using here, but I thought that I would throw that out.

It also looks like you have a discontiguous part of CD-1 south of Goldsboro.

[Torie]

1. Communities of interest are ignored. That is the whole point. An exception quite possibly is for Indian Reservations, but the Lumbees don't have one. So they are out of luck.

2. There is a traveling chop issue for my NC-9, but it is not clear if they are prohibited, or you just pay the the price vis a vis chop and erosity scores. Without a possible traveling chop, the city of Charlotte has to be split, which counts the same as a county chop for macro-chopped counties such as Mecklenburg. Gaston has to be taken in, because it is part of the Charlotte urban cluster, and if not included, you have a cover and pack penalty. And although COI does not matter, absent a traveling chop, the map would chop up the black community in Mecklenburg. And depending on how you slice Charlotte exactly, one CD becomes tossup, and the other remains in the Pub column, albeit narrowly.

3. There was a rogue precinct yes, and that caused a map change, since it threw off the population of NC-03. The tri-chopped county is lost, and two small county chops replace it, for the same chop score. The erosity score probably improves. The new map is a bit more Pub friendly, and the skew goes to Pub plus 2, and the Dem gain from the gerrymander drops to 1.5 seats.

[muon2]

Train's prediction that NC's gerrymander involved a 2 seat flip to the Pubs, appears to be correct.  Below is the Muon2 metric map. Remarkably. Outside the mandatory chops in Mecklenberg and Wake Counties, remarkably given the Jimrtex urban cluster obstacle course there is only one other county that is chopped.  Who would have imagined that poor little Rockingham County would end up being tri-chopped?

There are no Section 2 CD's involved, but even without the free pass to pack black Democrats, the map is still skewed to the Pubs by one more seat than would be "fair." The skew based on 2008 results should be two seats to the Pubs, rather than three.

That's about like the version I got for my NC in 2013. There is one thing to correct in the spreadsheet. Skew is based on the expected bias of seats. NC in 2008 was 3.5% more Pub than the national numbers, so multiplying that by 4 and by 13 seats, gives an expected delegation that is R+2. Thus, since your excess is R+3, the skew for your map is R+1.

[Sol]

Well, my concern regarding the Lumbee is that, unlike most so-called communities of interest, the Lumbee are genuinely an obvious community of interest in a quantifiable sense. In any case, it's easy to keep them together while maintaining a whole county CD-7 and CD-8 (although it does finks over CD-3 somewhat, but there's always somewhere in NC that gets a little messed up).

Charlotte UCC is too big for 2 districts, so you have to chop somewhere. So you might as well chop in Gaston County since you can't link it to any of the other Charlotte UCC counties.

[Torie]

Train's prediction that NC's gerrymander involved a 2 seat flip to the Pubs, appears to be correct.  Below is the Muon2 metric map. Remarkably. Outside the mandatory chops in Mecklenberg and Wake Counties, remarkably given the Jimrtex urban cluster obstacle course there is only one other county that is chopped.  Who would have imagined that poor little Rockingham County would end up being tri-chopped?

There are no Section 2 CD's involved, but even without the free pass to pack black Democrats, the map is still skewed to the Pubs by one more seat than would be "fair." The skew based on 2008 results should be two seats to the Pubs, rather than three.

That's about like the version I got for my NC in 2013. There is one thing to correct in the spreadsheet. Skew is based on the expected bias of seats. NC in 2008 was 3.5% more Pub than the national numbers, so multiplying that by 4 and by 13 seats, gives an expected delegation that is R+2. Thus, since your excess is R+3, the skew for your map is R+1.

The excess is 4 now, so the skew is 2. See my revised map.

[Torie]

Well, my concern regarding the Lumbee is that, unlike most so-called communities of interest, the Lumbee are genuinely an obvious community of interest in a quantifiable sense. In any case, it's easy to keep them together while maintaining a whole county CD-7 and CD-8 (although it does finks over CD-3 somewhat, but there's always somewhere in NC that gets a little messed up).

Charlotte UCC is too big for 2 districts, so you have to chop somewhere. So you might as well chop in Gaston County since you can't link it to any of the other Charlotte UCC counties.

Once you go into COI considerations, it all falls apart. There needs to be clear bright line scoring rules.
If the Lumbees had a reservation, then an exception could be made, ala Arizona, because in essence the reservations sort of count as their own counties as it were.

Gaston is trapped, and if it is chopped, you have a cover penalty. If Gaston is chopped, then there will be another impingement of the Charlotte urban cluster on the other side of the cluster.  Rowan, Stanley and Union Counties are all part of the cluster. So the chop into the Charlotte urban cluster, all needs to be on its east side.

[Miles]

NC, as Torie's map shows. Democrats have 3 seats not but I can see them getting 8 on his map.

[muon2]

Well, my concern regarding the Lumbee is that, unlike most so-called communities of interest, the Lumbee are genuinely an obvious community of interest in a quantifiable sense. In any case, it's easy to keep them together while maintaining a whole county CD-7 and CD-8 (although it does finks over CD-3 somewhat, but there's always somewhere in NC that gets a little messed up).

Charlotte UCC is too big for 2 districts, so you have to chop somewhere. So you might as well chop in Gaston County since you can't link it to any of the other Charlotte UCC counties.

I'm not sure one can make the case for a Lumbee CoI at the whole county level. Here are the VAPs (and %) for the Native population:

Robeson 36,142 (36.8%)
Hoke 2,909 (8.9%)
Scotland 2,604 (9.6%)

In neither raw numbers nor percent do either Hoke or Scotland remotely approach levels for a county cluster. Even Robeson is below the 40% VAP threshold we used for black minority clusters.

[muon2]

NC, as Torie's map shows. Democrats have 3 seats not but I can see them getting 8 on his map.

I don't see how they get 8 without some crazy blue dog action. Seven of the CDs are R+7 or better, so that leaves at most 6 targets for the Dems.

Torie's Charlotte area CD-9 uses a bridge chop to link Gaston to Iredell and Cabarrus. Those are either illegal or at best penalized at the level of a UCC chop. The proper chop is to split Charlotte evenly between the two CDs. Not only does it avoid the bridge chop, but it improves the visual compactness of CD-9 and creates two highly competitive CDs R+0.7 and D+0.1. That would bring Dem targets up to 7 CDs.

[Miles]

NC, as Torie's map shows. Democrats have 3 seats not but I can see them getting 8 on his map.

I don't see how they get 8 without some crazy blue dog action. Seven of the CDs are R+7 or better, so that leaves at most 6 targets for the Dems.

Shouldn't we consider incumbents, though?

I'm pretty confident McIntyre would win 7, Kissell 2 and Shuler 11.

[muon2]

NC, as Torie's map shows. Democrats have 3 seats not but I can see them getting 8 on his map.

I don't see how they get 8 without some crazy blue dog action. Seven of the CDs are R+7 or better, so that leaves at most 6 targets for the Dems.

Shouldn't we consider incumbents, though?

I'm pretty confident McIntyre would win 7, Kissell 2 and Shuler 11.

Kissell might hold CD-2 at R+3, but the other CDs are R+7.5 and are very tough. Even if they are held in 2012, I doubt they would hold in 2014, and once lost aren't coming back in the decade.

[muon2]

1. Communities of interest are ignored. That is the whole point. An exception quite possibly is for Indian Reservations, but the Lumbees don't have one. So they are out of luck.

2. There is a traveling chop issue for my NC-9, but it is not clear if they are prohibited, or you just pay the the price vis a vis chop and erosity scores. Without a possible traveling chop, the city of Charlotte has to be split, which counts the same as a county chop for macro-chopped counties such as Mecklenburg. Gaston has to be taken in, because it is part of the Charlotte urban cluster, and if not included, you have a cover and pack penalty. And although COI does not matter, absent a traveling chop, the map would chop up the black community in Mecklenburg. And depending on how you slice Charlotte exactly, one CD becomes tossup, and the other remains in the Pub column, albeit narrowly.

3. There was a rogue precinct yes, and that caused a map change, since it threw off the population of NC-03. The tri-chopped county is lost, and two small county chops replace it, for the same chop score. The erosity score probably improves. The new map is a bit more Pub friendly, and the skew goes to Pub plus 2, and the Dem gain from the gerrymander drops to 1.5 seats.

I also see a bridge chop in CD-8 (Randolph). In addition there is no highway connection between Rowan and Stanly. This version could fit with the rest of the plan to fix the defects.



CD-5: R+8
CD-8: R+1
CD-9: R+17
CD-12: D+2

This also drops the skew back to R+1.

Edit: The 2010 population of Charlotte (731,424) is barely below as that of a CD (733,499). But Pineville is surrounded and has a 2010 population of 7,479, so it puts any whole Charlotte district over the quota by more than the variance. It also looks like the city lines for Charlotte cut off Gaston county. I would conclude that a chop of Charlotte is a necessity.

Edit2: We defined a CoI for black (esp rural) counties as connected counties over 40% BVAP. Martin counties fits that, so it should swap with Currituck to keep the MCC together. The swap also improves erosity.

[Miles]

NC, as Torie's map shows. Democrats have 3 seats not but I can see them getting 8 on his map.

I don't see how they get 8 without some crazy blue dog action. Seven of the CDs are R+7 or better, so that leaves at most 6 targets for the Dems.

Shouldn't we consider incumbents, though?

I'm pretty confident McIntyre would win 7, Kissell 2 and Shuler 11.

Kissell might hold CD-2 at R+3, but the other CDs are R+7.5 and are very tough. Even if they are held in 2012, I doubt they would hold in 2014, and once lost aren't coming back in the decade.

If McIntyre replicated his 2010 numbers in 2014 (very doable), and only matched Hagan in Onslow County, he still would have won a two-way race.

Really the same thing for Shuler. The district Torie gave him was 51/44 Tillis, actually worse than Romney's 54/44. Not hard to see Schuler getting the 6% extra over Hagan.

[Torie]

1. Communities of interest are ignored. That is the whole point. An exception quite possibly is for Indian Reservations, but the Lumbees don't have one. So they are out of luck.

2. There is a traveling chop issue for my NC-9, but it is not clear if they are prohibited, or you just pay the the price vis a vis chop and erosity scores. Without a possible traveling chop, the city of Charlotte has to be split, which counts the same as a county chop for macro-chopped counties such as Mecklenburg. Gaston has to be taken in, because it is part of the Charlotte urban cluster, and if not included, you have a cover and pack penalty. And although COI does not matter, absent a traveling chop, the map would chop up the black community in Mecklenburg. And depending on how you slice Charlotte exactly, one CD becomes tossup, and the other remains in the Pub column, albeit narrowly.

3. There was a rogue precinct yes, and that caused a map change, since it threw off the population of NC-03. The tri-chopped county is lost, and two small county chops replace it, for the same chop score. The erosity score probably improves. The new map is a bit more Pub friendly, and the skew goes to Pub plus 2, and the Dem gain from the gerrymander drops to 1.5 seats.

I also see a bridge chop in CD-8 (Randolph). In addition there is no highway connection between Rowan and Stanly. This version could fit with the rest of the plan to fix the defects.



CD-5: R+8
CD-8: R+1
CD-9: R+17
CD-12: D+2

This also drops the skew back to R+1.

Edit: The 2010 population of Charlotte (731,424) is barely below as that of a CD (733,499). But Pineville is surrounded and has a 2010 population of 7,479, so it puts any whole Charlotte district over the quota by more than the variance. It also looks like the city lines for Charlotte cut off Gaston county. I would conclude that a chop of Charlotte is a necessity.

Edit2: We defined a CoI for black (esp rural) counties as connected counties over 40% BVAP. Martin counties fits that, so it should swap with Currituck to keep the MCC together. The swap also improves erosity.

I thought there was a bridge problem to Currituck, but I see now there are the requisite bridges to that county from the balance of NC-03.  I also see there is no road connection to Gaston that avoids Charlotte, so putting aside what the rules are for traveling chops (never fully discussed), it is a no go. Some states allow discontiguous CD’s for trapped governmental jurisdictions, but presumably NC does not, so there is a population issue for Charlotte as well.

I also see the traveling chop issue for Randolph. Anyway, the map below fixes the issues. You have a pack penalty for the Charlotte urban cluster, and this map loses that, in exchange for an extra county chop of Moore County. So the scoring of the two maps comes down to their respective erosity scores.






Here is another iteration, which might potentially improve the erosity score.