Fair redistricting: California

[Tintrlvr]

Wooow interesting, so a non partisan map would mean a dem seat?

Definitely. Utah's natural political geography is quite friendly to the Democrats, at least as long as the state as a whole is ultra-Republican. I'm not sure it's even possible to draw a map that has one seat entirely contained in Salt Lake County that isn't D-leaning because of restrictions elsewhere.

(AustralianSwingVoter's map doesn't work because Box Elder and Rich counties don't have road connections to points south, so there's a bottleneck through Morgan and Davis Counties that forces there to be one district entirely north of Salt Lake County, which removes the only gerrymandering opportunity that might otherwise present itself of separating Salt Lake City from the rest of Salt Lake County.)

[muon2]

Wooow interesting, so a non partisan map would mean a dem seat?

Definitely. Utah's natural political geography is quite friendly to the Democrats, at least as long as the state as a whole is ultra-Republican. I'm not sure it's even possible to draw a map that has one seat entirely contained in Salt Lake County that isn't D-leaning because of restrictions elsewhere.

(AustralianSwingVoter's map doesn't work because Box Elder and Rich counties don't have road connections to points south, so there's a bottleneck through Morgan and Davis Counties that forces there to be one district entirely north of Salt Lake County, which removes the only gerrymandering opportunity that might otherwise present itself of separating Salt Lake City from the rest of Salt Lake County.)

Actually I think Aussie's map does work. Morgan county connects to Summit and from there to points south. It also connects to eastern Weber by state highway and from there to points north by way of the Pineview Reservoir. As long as that reservoir is in his CD 2 with Morgan, everything connects.

Utah Non-Partisan plan.

My non-partisan redistricting plan for Utah. Only two counties are split

District 1 R+13.03 - 40.3 - 57.0
District 2 R+30.31 - 26.3 - 70.4
District 3 R+32.16 - 22.0 - 74.8
District 4 R+03.54 - 48.2 - 49.0

[cvparty]

1: D+18
2: R+7
3: R+6
4: D+5

[Strudelcutie4427]

1. D+8 (-41) 46% W 27% H 14% A
2. R+7 (204)
3. R+8 (-472)
4. D+18 (309) 32% W 15% B 44% H

[muon2]

I thought we were on UT until 3/21. What happened, and why so short for NV?

[YE]

A fair map of a D leaning state that is very swingy shouldn't have 2 safe R seats, especially one that basically carves up Las Vegas into two main seats and basically attachs suburbs of Las Vegas with Henderson and rurals. Honestly the current map of NV is pretty fair.

[YE]

A fair map of a D leaning state that is very swingy shouldn't have 2 safe R seats, especially one that basically carves up Las Vegas into two main seats and basically attachs suburbs of Las Vegas with Henderson and rurals. Honestly the current map of NV is pretty fair.

“Single Texas Guy for Fun” has a history of making “fair” maps that aren’t, you know, fair. See the Pennsylvania fair map thread for a good laugh

I mean in his defense the map would be more sensible if NV was an inelastic state - where drawing 2 safe D and 2 safe R seats would make more sense.

[cvparty]

A fair map of a D leaning state that is very swingy shouldn't have 2 safe R seats, especially one that basically carves up Las Vegas into two main seats and basically attachs suburbs of Las Vegas with Henderson and rurals. Honestly the current map of NV is pretty fair.

nevada isn't that democratic lol it was even in 2016

[muon2]

I didn't expect UT to end so abruptly and NV to have such a short submission time (it would have been on 3/28 based on the last cycles). I had expected to have access to DRA by the time NV was due so all I have are the population numbers for this 2015 plan. I also am still curious if voting will take place, since normally I would be getting some idea of what the panel likes and doesn't like by now.

NV has a number of adjacent counties with no roads and only desert between them. Nye is unusual in that there's no way to get from it's most populous city to the county seat without leaving the county. Here's a map of the connections between counties.



This plan was drawn to minimize erosity and preserve connections. To do that there's one county chop outside of Clark. Within Clark the only muni chopped is Paradise.





edit: additional DRA numbers:

CD 1: PVI D+13; 43.6% WVAP; 32.6% HVAP; 12.4% BVAP
CD 2: PVI R+7.2;
CD 3: PVI D+4.2; 53.2% WVAP; 26.8% HVAP; 10.0% BVAP
CD 4: PVI R+2.8;

[cvparty]

I didn't expect UT to end so abruptly and NV to have such a short submission time (it would have been on 3/28 based on the last cycles). I had expected to have access to DRA by the time NV was due so all I have are the population numbers for this 2015 plan. I also am still curious if voting will take place, since normally I would be getting some idea of what the panel likes and doesn't like by now.

I don't wanna drag out small states, Utah and Nevada only have 4 districts each, there are only so many ways to draw them
and yes we are voting, Scarlet is actually back on the panel and has cast votes for past states. I shall update the spreadsheet and put in in the northeast OP

[muon2]

I didn't expect UT to end so abruptly and NV to have such a short submission time (it would have been on 3/28 based on the last cycles). I had expected to have access to DRA by the time NV was due so all I have are the population numbers for this 2015 plan. I also am still curious if voting will take place, since normally I would be getting some idea of what the panel likes and doesn't like by now.

I don't wanna drag out small states, Utah and Nevada only have 4 districts each, there are only so many ways to draw them
and yes we are voting, Scarlet is actually back on the panel and has cast votes for past states. I shall update the spreadsheet and put in in the northeast OP

But with four states in parallel, I don't think there's any harm in letting one run slow. In addition, many posters have RL commitments and a two day turnaround is tough. Finally, a thread that slows down offers opportunity for comments, since once the next state is underway there will be less attention placed on plans for the previous one.

Along with the spreadsheet, are the panelists making comments, and if so can they be posted? From a research perspective they are the most valuable part of this.

[cvparty]

I didn't expect UT to end so abruptly and NV to have such a short submission time (it would have been on 3/28 based on the last cycles). I had expected to have access to DRA by the time NV was due so all I have are the population numbers for this 2015 plan. I also am still curious if voting will take place, since normally I would be getting some idea of what the panel likes and doesn't like by now.

I don't wanna drag out small states, Utah and Nevada only have 4 districts each, there are only so many ways to draw them
and yes we are voting, Scarlet is actually back on the panel and has cast votes for past states. I shall update the spreadsheet and put in in the northeast OP

But with four states in parallel, I don't think there's any harm in letting one run slow. In addition, many posters have RL commitments and a two day turnaround is tough. Finally, a thread that slows down offers opportunity for comments, since once the next state is underway there will be less attention placed on plans for the previous one.

Along with the spreadsheet, are the panelists making comments, and if so can they be posted? From a research perspective they are the most valuable part of this.

sure sure, I'll extend NV and the other states cuz sadly we don't have many proposals, we ain't going back to UT tho cuz there are really no other ways to draw it

and um, sol and i try to but the others don't really. comments will be in the spreadsheet. tim basically ignores me soo

[Sol]

I didn't expect UT to end so abruptly and NV to have such a short submission time (it would have been on 3/28 based on the last cycles). I had expected to have access to DRA by the time NV was due so all I have are the population numbers for this 2015 plan. I also am still curious if voting will take place, since normally I would be getting some idea of what the panel likes and doesn't like by now.

I don't wanna drag out small states, Utah and Nevada only have 4 districts each, there are only so many ways to draw them
and yes we are voting, Scarlet is actually back on the panel and has cast votes for past states. I shall update the spreadsheet and put in in the northeast OP

But with four states in parallel, I don't think there's any harm in letting one run slow. In addition, many posters have RL commitments and a two day turnaround is tough. Finally, a thread that slows down offers opportunity for comments, since once the next state is underway there will be less attention placed on plans for the previous one.

Along with the spreadsheet, are the panelists making comments, and if so can they be posted? From a research perspective they are the most valuable part of this.

I've been making comments since a few rounds ago. I'll post the relevant comments in the relevant threads if that's okay .

Colorado

First Round:
Sol - Y
Singletxguyforfun - Y
cvparty - Y
AustralianSwingVoter - Y
muon2 - Y

All of these are actually very worthy maps IMO. Colorado's configuration of population requires some ugliness somewhere and a bunch of chops in Denver, so a lot is about deciding where to make the cut. I'm curious about muon2's CO-05; when I tried to draw that in DRA it didn't have such a small deviation.

Second round:
cvparty=muon2>Sol>Singletxguyforfun>ASV

muon2's map is cleaner, but cvparty's is better for CoI.

Arizona:
muon2>cvparty>MB=AustralianSwingVoter=singletxguyforfun

Quite a few maps split reservations, which was for me disqualifying. I like both of the top two maps a lot, but I decided to go with muon2's map. I prefer cvparty's outer districts, particularly the fact that there's a latinx influence district based in Tucson. It's really a pity that drawing two heavily Hispanic districts in Arizona requires such ugly snakes from Tucson to Phoenix. I respect that cvparty's AZ-03, but since it even probably isn't Latinx majority by CVAP I decided to go with muon2's map, since the lines in Maricopa are better for CoIs and municipalities (I think). Ask me on a different day and you might get a different result. From having drawn Arizona I know the challenges though.

Utah:
single-B>muon2>cvparty=MB>HCP>ASV>single-A

I put Single-A and ASV low due to their road contiguity issues. ASV is ranked a bit higher because it's technically contiguous, but doing a donut district linked only through sparsely inhabited country seems like a bit of a hash in terms of CoI.

HCP's green district is a bit weird to me--it seems like a better fit culturally to have one district centered in Salt Lake City proper, rather than plopping it in with ski bum country and Tooele County.

Cvparty/MB have an excellent map. Nothing really to pick apart, I simply like the other maps better.

Muon2 has a very good map. I like that he puts Tooele County in with suburban Salt Lake, since there's a bit of an exurban quality to Tooele's eastern edge. Single-B is my favorite map though. Although he does split an extra county, his map is a good community of interest follower. His 4th district concisely includes all of "downstate" Utah. Although Provo is a big hunk of the district's population in both maps, I think Single-B's 4th district less erose and more liable to elect a candidate representing a rural community.

Hope my rationale makes sense!

[cvparty]

I didn't expect UT to end so abruptly and NV to have such a short submission time (it would have been on 3/28 based on the last cycles). I had expected to have access to DRA by the time NV was due so all I have are the population numbers for this 2015 plan. I also am still curious if voting will take place, since normally I would be getting some idea of what the panel likes and doesn't like by now.

I don't wanna drag out small states, Utah and Nevada only have 4 districts each, there are only so many ways to draw them
and yes we are voting, Scarlet is actually back on the panel and has cast votes for past states. I shall update the spreadsheet and put in in the northeast OP

But with four states in parallel, I don't think there's any harm in letting one run slow. In addition, many posters have RL commitments and a two day turnaround is tough. Finally, a thread that slows down offers opportunity for comments, since once the next state is underway there will be less attention placed on plans for the previous one.

Along with the spreadsheet, are the panelists making comments, and if so can they be posted? From a research perspective they are the most valuable part of this.

I've been making comments since a few rounds ago. I'll post the relevant comments in the relevant threads if that's okay .

well I put all your comments in the results spreadsheet so you don't have to

[muon2]

I didn't expect UT to end so abruptly and NV to have such a short submission time (it would have been on 3/28 based on the last cycles). I had expected to have access to DRA by the time NV was due so all I have are the population numbers for this 2015 plan. I also am still curious if voting will take place, since normally I would be getting some idea of what the panel likes and doesn't like by now.

I don't wanna drag out small states, Utah and Nevada only have 4 districts each, there are only so many ways to draw them
and yes we are voting, Scarlet is actually back on the panel and has cast votes for past states. I shall update the spreadsheet and put in in the northeast OP

But with four states in parallel, I don't think there's any harm in letting one run slow. In addition, many posters have RL commitments and a two day turnaround is tough. Finally, a thread that slows down offers opportunity for comments, since once the next state is underway there will be less attention placed on plans for the previous one.

Along with the spreadsheet, are the panelists making comments, and if so can they be posted? From a research perspective they are the most valuable part of this.

I've been making comments since a few rounds ago. I'll post the relevant comments in the relevant threads if that's okay .

Colorado

First Round:
Sol - Y
Singletxguyforfun - Y
cvparty - Y
AustralianSwingVoter - Y
muon2 - Y

All of these are actually very worthy maps IMO. Colorado's configuration of population requires some ugliness somewhere and a bunch of chops in Denver, so a lot is about deciding where to make the cut. I'm curious about muon2's CO-05; when I tried to draw that in DRA it didn't have such a small deviation.

Second round:
cvparty=muon2>Sol>Singletxguyforfun>ASV

muon2's map is cleaner, but cvparty's is better for CoI.

Arizona:
muon2>cvparty>MB=AustralianSwingVoter=singletxguyforfun

Quite a few maps split reservations, which was for me disqualifying. I like both of the top two maps a lot, but I decided to go with muon2's map. I prefer cvparty's outer districts, particularly the fact that there's a latinx influence district based in Tucson. It's really a pity that drawing two heavily Hispanic districts in Arizona requires such ugly snakes from Tucson to Phoenix. I respect that cvparty's AZ-03, but since it even probably isn't Latinx majority by CVAP I decided to go with muon2's map, since the lines in Maricopa are better for CoIs and municipalities (I think). Ask me on a different day and you might get a different result. From having drawn Arizona I know the challenges though.

Utah:
single-B>muon2>cvparty=MB>HCP>ASV>single-A

I put Single-A and ASV low due to their road contiguity issues. ASV is ranked a bit higher because it's technically contiguous, but doing a donut district linked only through sparsely inhabited country seems like a bit of a hash in terms of CoI.

HCP's green district is a bit weird to me--it seems like a better fit culturally to have one district centered in Salt Lake City proper, rather than plopping it in with ski bum country and Tooele County.

Cvparty/MB have an excellent map. Nothing really to pick apart, I simply like the other maps better.

Muon2 has a very good map. I like that he puts Tooele County in with suburban Salt Lake, since there's a bit of an exurban quality to Tooele's eastern edge. Single-B is my favorite map though. Although he does split an extra county, his map is a good community of interest follower. His 4th district concisely includes all of "downstate" Utah. Although Provo is a big hunk of the district's population in both maps, I think Single-B's 4th district less erose and more liable to elect a candidate representing a rural community.

Hope my rationale makes sense!

Thanks. These are very helpful.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Nevada Non-Partisan plan.

My non-partisan redistricting plan for Nevada. There is a Hispanic Majority VRA district, and only 3 cities in Clark County are split.

District 1 D+21.12 - 70.1 - 27.6 - 50.1 Hispanic
District 2 R+06.97 - 49.4 - 48.2
District 3 D+01.48 - 55.6 - 42.5
District 4 R+03.82 - 51.4 - 46.3

[cvparty]

Idaho is a weird state, good luck I guess

[KingSweden]

Idaho is a weird state, good luck I guess

IMO there’s nothing particularly unfair about Idaho’s map, unless ones of a mind that Boise deserves its own district

[cvparty]

Idaho is a weird state, good luck I guess

IMO there’s nothing particularly unfair about Idaho’s map, unless ones of a mind that Boise deserves its own district

that's what I believe
I mean it really doesn't matter either way cuz both seats are super Republican so

[muon2]

Idaho is a weird state, good luck I guess

I think you still need to update the OP to reflect a submission date (MS too).

[KingSweden]

Idaho is a weird state, good luck I guess

IMO there’s nothing particularly unfair about Idaho’s map, unless ones of a mind that Boise deserves its own district

that's what I believe
I mean it really doesn't matter either way cuz both seats are super Republican so

It’s a defensible position, though that denies Northern and Eastern Idaho a straightforward connection other than one by plane

[muon2]

Here are my two submissions. I'll fill in more details in a couple of days when I have access to DRA again (DRA stats added now).

Plan A preserves to Boise UCC, has no county chops, a population deviation within 0.5%, and counties are connected by road, though in one case it is a former, not current state highway.



CD 1: -146; R+23
CD 2: +146; R+15

Plan B goes for exact population equality with whole counties. In this case the districts are each within 1 of the population quota. The counties are contiguous, but there is one county in CD 1 that cannot be reached by road from the others in that CD. The Boise UCC is chopped along county lines.



CD 1: +1; R+13
CD 2: -1; R+26

[muon2]

1: R+15
2: R+23
my map keeps the whole Boise metro area together

Without Boise county there's no way to get from northern to eastern ID. The mountains are as uncrossable as the Chesapeake Bay in MD without a bridge. It has the same problem as my map B.

One of the interesting things to observe here is the types of maps that Atlas produces and how they are judged. The actual map was done by a neutral group. It splits the Boise metro because the northern panhandle doesn't care much for eastern ID and they'd rather be grouped with Nampa and the Boise metro.

[Sol]

1: R+15
2: R+23
my map keeps the whole Boise metro area together

Without Boise county there's no way to get from northern to eastern ID. The mountains are as uncrossable as the Chesapeake Bay in MD without a bridge. It has the same problem as my map B.

One of the interesting things to observe here is the types of maps that Atlas produces and how they are judged. The actual map was done by a neutral group. It splits the Boise metro because the northern panhandle doesn't care much for eastern ID and they'd rather be grouped with Nampa and the Boise metro.

mm, idaho is such a remote and geographically large and nonsensical state that having 2 districts will necessarily result in some sort of incongruity...if you have one district based around Boise, at least it can be construed as Boise vs. the rest of the state/the rural wilds

Mm, I dunno if that makes sense. Eastern Idaho has a very distinct identity--it's much more Mormon and in a lot of ways is sort of an extension of the Wasatch Range, with a bunch of small cities throughout. The Panhandle is the least Mormon part of the state and is more closely linked to Western Montana and Eastern Washington. And they are completely unreachable without traveling through Boise. Any map which links the two is an unconscionable gerrymander.

[muon2]

1: R+15
2: R+23
my map keeps the whole Boise metro area together

Without Boise county there's no way to get from northern to eastern ID. The mountains are as uncrossable as the Chesapeake Bay in MD without a bridge. It has the same problem as my map B.

One of the interesting things to observe here is the types of maps that Atlas produces and how they are judged. The actual map was done by a neutral group. It splits the Boise metro because the northern panhandle doesn't care much for eastern ID and they'd rather be grouped with Nampa and the Boise metro.

mm, idaho is such a remote and geographically large and nonsensical state that having 2 districts will necessarily result in some sort of incongruity...if you have one district based around Boise, at least it can be construed as Boise vs. the rest of the state/the rural wilds

Mm, I dunno if that makes sense. Eastern Idaho has a very distinct identity--it's much more Mormon and in a lot of ways is sort of an extension of the Wasatch Range, with a bunch of small cities throughout. The Panhandle is the least Mormon part of the state and is more closely linked to Western Montana and Eastern Washington. And they are completely unreachable without traveling through Boise. Any map which links the two is an unconscionable gerrymander.

The only link not through Boise city ( Ada county ) is through Boise county just northwest of Ada. It's a good highway, equivalent to most of the mountain highways. I drove it during my nine day visit to central ID last year.

The problem with the northern panhandle is it is less than half the population of a CD, and as Sol notes politically more attune with Spokane and the Flathead region of MT. Linking it to either Nampa or Idaho Falls is incongruous, but inevitable given the pop. If neutral metrics cause it to link to the east with a connection, then forcing it to Nampa can also be seen as a gerrymander. That's why I drew two plans to different neutral metrics, presumably neither can be accused of being a gerrymander.