Dave's Redistricting App

[muon2]

I gotta say, I love how the app w/ census data has boxes for both population and VAP.

That's actually I request I sent to him about a month ago. I pointed out that VAP is the correct measure for legal purposes. I was impressed to see how fast it was implemented.

[muon2]

Are the Hispanic areas dense enough for two districts, or will we be seeing a return of the Earmuffs?

The SW Chicago area easily has enough Hispanic population for a 65% (58% VAP) district by itself. That's just using the data in the App. No earmuffs should be needed. 

The NW area may have enough for a district as well, but that depends on how far out into the suburbs the district extends. Precincts can be pretty coarse for setting up minority districts. Block-level data will give a better idea as to the possibilities on the NW side.

[muon2]

Are the Hispanic areas dense enough for two districts, or will we be seeing a return of the Earmuffs?

The SW Chicago area easily has enough Hispanic population for a 65% (58% VAP) district by itself. That's just using the data in the App. No earmuffs should be needed. 

The NW area may have enough for a district as well, but that depends on how far out into the suburbs the district extends. Precincts can be pretty coarse for setting up minority districts. Block-level data will give a better idea as to the possibilities on the NW side.

Which reminds me - have you had a chance to look at Austin and environs to see if a Hispanic majority CD can be created w/o San Antonio. My 10 min look at last night the VTD suggests it'll fall a few percent short and would be extremely ugly anyway.

The core area for a district is Eastern Travis, Caldwell, Gonzales and Dewitt. I added short spurs to pick up New Braunfels and Seguin, which didn't look so bad. I then had to add a long spur through Victoria to Port Lavaca to get a full district at 50.2% VAP. That keeps out of San Antonio. It may be possible to run to Bryan instead of Port Lavaca, but I haven't fully worked on that.

[muon2]

Who determines the Precinct Boundries in each state?  Is it the legislature?

In IL it is determined by the counties following guidelines set by state statute. Precincts are expected to conform to congressional and legislative district boundaries, and county board and ward boundaries are supposed to conform to precincts as nearly as practicible.

[muon2]

I actually got DRA 2.2 to load on my slow connection finally, but I keep getting this Async Error everytime I try to load a state after selecting which data to use. It happens on every state, and all three data types. It is happening on both my new and old computers. Has anyone experienced this before?

Yes this happens on some servers, but not on others. It's also more likely with larger states. I sent a note to Dave a few weeks ago, and I saw some improvement after that.

When it happens to me I find a server where I can download the state and set up the number of districts I want. If I save that file I find I can open it back at a location where the state wouldn't download and continue editing from there.

[muon2]

I redistricted Kansas...Forgot to save map, but i got the numbers.

KS-01: 64% McCain
KS-02: 54% McCain
KS-03: 49% McCain
KS-04: 57% McCain

Only ugly parts is where I split Topeka three ways. Oh, and KS-03 was pretty fugly, but it's a completely urban district (Wyandotte, Johnson counties, and part of Shawnee county, and a few other decent sized counties.)



I think KS-02 maybe the only district who's representative who's congressperson was misplaced lol.

If you have the map you might want to put that on the Kansas thread instead of here.

[muon2]

I don't understand how hard it could possibly be to add 2016 or at least 2012 election data into DRA.

Precincts (VTDs) in many states changed after the 2010 Census, so that would require loading all the shapefiles for precincts and matching them up with election data. Some states change precincts after each election cycle. It's a lot of work to keep up. The Atlas doesn't have that available for all states either.

[muon2]

I don't understand how hard it could possibly be to add 2016 or at least 2012 election data into DRA.

Precincts (VTDs) in many states changed after the 2010 Census, so that would require loading all the shapefiles for precincts and matching them up with election data. Some states change precincts after each election cycle. It's a lot of work to keep up. The Atlas doesn't have that available for all states either.

Haven't multiple places (Decision Desk HQ) already mapped out the 2016 vote by precinct?

But that doesn't translate into data in DRA. It's unlikely that anyone would invest that much time loading that much new data into software that is unsupported by the current browsers.

Decision Desk HQ's map is down at present. I'm curious to see how they mapped IL precincts over the last three elections. They change every two years and the state doesn't have a single source for the precinct geographies. They have to collect them county by county, and some counties only keep paper records of the precinct maps. The only time it gets pulled together in a GIS is to prepare for the Census, which will happen over the next two years.

Edit: With a little digging I found that the map is up, it's just that they have a message elsewhere saying that it isn't. Clearly the author put a vast amount of time into it (Dave Leip is cited in the acknowedgements). They even have the changes in IL precincts between 2012 and 2016 that I'm aware of. Presumably this will be a great resource for the 2020 cycle of redistricting apps, but that doesn't help a legacy product like DRA 2.