Fair Redistricting (PA aftermath)

[Torie]

So the first question is does the panel draw the map or do they select from publicly-submitted plans (ie including posters who aren't on the panel)?

The second question is what criteria will the panel use to evaluate plans?

Why not both? I.e. the public can propose a map but the panel can also draw and choose a map.

Yeah we can do both. I like that idea, it seems a bit more real. So right now we have myself as the republican, LimoLiberal and TimTurner as the Dems, CVparty as the Indy, and muon, you wanna be the other Rep?

There is a risk that Muon2 will take over your panel simply by virtue of his expertise (heck I find him tough to cope with, and I am no babe in the woods on this. ). Moreover, in his closet are maps of almost every freaking state in the nation, on which he was spent hours and hours. He has more maps in his closet, than I have dirty socks in mine, and that is a lot. I would keep that boy off. You could use him as a referee to help keep the process moving smoothly. You do need rules, but to keep it fun rather than mechanical, you might just list factors, with the weighting up to each panel member.

[Torie]

a possible Maine plan

This is why I asked about criteria. One might be what software can be used; for instance all plans must be submitted on DRA. TT's plan using the KHW app is whole county only, and in his case has a population range of 2.39%. That's pretty large, and how to handle population inequality is one of the most fundamental factors. Maybe the panel is less concerned with SCOTUS and more about ease of submission.

My recommendation is that the panel adopt its rules for submitting plans and the factors on which plans will be judged before starting on any states.

And then the VRA thing, which can get really complicated at the margins. A referee could act in part as a legal advisor on that, if the VRA is in the mix. It probably should be, since part of the fun is to try to replicate what happens in the real world, rather than some place like Atlasia. 

[Torie]

Pending whatever, including rules, here is a map.

[Torie]

What happens if the panel is unable to secure 3 votes for any map, with one Pub and one Dem voting for it?

[Torie]

What happens if the panel is unable to secure 3 votes for any map, with one Pub and one Dem voting for it?

I suppose any map with just 3/5 would pass then
and if no map that anyone created is considered fair by 3/5...well there's probably a problem in one of the panel members

One mechanism is to use a numeric measure of the non-mandatory criteria, such as in the muon rules. Then if no plan gets 3/5 with bipartisan support the plan with the best score wins.

That would tend to end up with the best scoring map always winning (if the panel folks know how to score well), unless a Pub and a Dem both like a lower scoring map better (more likely in the real world where bipartisan gerrymanders are popular with incumbent protection plans, than here). I suggest some mechanism to introduce uncertainty and risk for both parties, if they cannot compromise on a map. For example, that could be a coin flip, or some third party pretending to be judge, selecting one of the two maps that got the most votes. If you go the judge route, I would volunteer for that if desired, which would mean that I would not submit any maps myself to the panel, nor comment on any of the maps submitted. The judge should be a different person from the advisor/referee for the panel I would think. The duty of the judge would be decide which map best hews to the rules that the panel has agreed to in advance, whatever they may be.

[Torie]

We should either not have VRA for purpose of this exercise, or have it be a factor that is deemphasized, but still be present.

You will need Muon2's advice on VRA matters sometimes, and that process might delay matters. Two days is tight with that element in play.

[Torie]

We should either not have VRA for purpose of this exercise, or have it be a factor that is deemphasized, but still be present.

I feel like considering the safeguards that the other factors already impose and the advantage VRA creates for the GOP, it's not really necessary. plus I think this project is meant to be quick so it'd also be cumbersome if we had it. I do have in the rules that districts' constituents should be demographically similar

You will need Muon2's advice on VRA matters sometimes, and that process might delay matters. Two days is tight with that element in play.

two days is just for map submission, the selection will take another couple days

Understanding the VRA's application in a specific context might influence the maps that are drawn. All of this only applies to a few states however (well maybe 10 where the answer is potentially not obvious), PA being one of them.

[Torie]

Regarding Maine, I am not sure using towns is a very good idea. Many of the towns are defunct, although where the lines are drawn between CD's, in all probability the towns involved will have some governmental life to them (the defunct towns are mostly in the very low population density north woods). But even using block groups on the DRA rather than election districts (which are larger), the block groups do not necessarily match the town lines. For example, looking at the maps below, if I added the town of Sweden in Oxford county to the blue CD, I would get very close to exact population equality (Sweden has a population of 391). But I can't do that. There are two block groups that together cover Sweden and Lovell, but the line between the two block groups does not match the town line between Sweden and Lovell. Other block groups combine more than one town, as one can see with the block group that takes in Stow, South Oxford and Stoneham.

Sure, one could invite participants to search out the town maps on the internet, figure out which towns still have meaning rather than having been consigned to the ash heap of history, look up the populations, and then photoshop the map to draw a line chopping a block group, and adjust the population accordingly. I doubt you guys want to have that level of complexity here, particularly with tight time frames, which might discourage participants who want to play, but don't want this activity to be their chief hobby in life.

Iowa by the way has towns (townships). They are all defunct so far as I know (and I do know they are in Madison County).



[url=https://ibb.co/d42kD7]

[Torie]

It might carry weight which map is more exact if the maps otherwise tie, but whatever. And you might be right, that there is no voting district that takes in parts (slices, dices, bits, pieces, fragments) of two towns (are you sure?). But the participants will have to figure out digging out the town maps, which voting districts chop a town, and which do not (see map below where one town (South Oxford) is split into two voting districts, with one voting district therein also taking in another town (Stoneham) to confuse matters further). Good luck with that. The voting district numbers give no clue as to whether a split is involved or not.

[Torie]

Perhaps you could provide a link to where one finds all these town maps.

[Torie]

Perhaps you could provide a link to where one finds all these town maps.

here click the state, then the county and you have the towns

This is so much fun. I see that part of South Oxford has morphed into something called "Albany UT" (what is a UT?), with the balance split into two bits that are greyed out. So a poster puts up a map that has Albany UT in one CD (let's assume that the voting district takes in only the geography of Albany UT for purposes of this hypothetical (it doesn't quite actually, but maybe that is Leips being a tad sloppy with the lines) and the grey bits in another, and a competing poster after the deadline, points out the chop digging out the real town maps, rather than the inaccurate ones on the Leips site.

[Torie]

Perhaps you could provide a link to where one finds all these town maps.

I search for them separately, eg franklin county maine town map. I can usually find one in the images. There are too many in ME overall to see them clearly on a state map.

You of course love all this navigating of the maze I understand. My map beats yours on equality, if I get to chop a voting district, to tease out the glorious town of Sweden.  Yours no doubt wins on erosity using your metric, which has not been adopted by the panel. Rather their metric is more alone the lines of the pornography test, that you know it when you see it. Some might think something that is elongated, traversing the state from north to south in an emaciated way, but scores will using your metric, because it hugs a state line, is more erotic than your metric scoring. But that is part of the fun I guess. 

Anyway, just out of curiosity, can a poster chop a voting district in the way I did, or not?  What is the rule?

[Torie]

and you can't split south oxford in DRA anyway...

Actually I showed above that you can. But whether the Leips map is accurate or not, pretending that it is, makes total sense to me. Looking for other maps on the internet does not. That still leaves the question, as to whether a participant can chop a voting district, in order to avoid a town chop, or to take in just one of several towns that are in the voting district.

It is odd that Leaps calls Albany an unorganized township the Leips map rules, and you say assume any designation of UT thereon, as being no different from where it says "Town," than that puts that matter to bed.

Actually, Albany is an unorganized town with no functions these days ("defrocked" some time ago as a real town). But if, along with the other two bits that you mentioned as constituting the "unorganized territory" of South Oxford (which other two bits might not even have a UT status (I can't find that out on the internet), that does not matter, we can cease to worry about that.

[Torie]

and you can't split south oxford in DRA anyway...

Actually I showed above that you can. But whether the Leips map is accurate or not, pretending that it is, makes total sense to me. Looking for other maps on the internet does not. That still leaves the question, as to whether a participant can chop a voting district, in order to avoid a town chop, or to take in just one of several towns that are in the voting district.

It is odd that Leaps calls Albany an unorganized township, while you say it is a genuine organized town, with the larger South Oxford entity the real UT. But if the Leips map rules, and you say assume any designation of UT thereon, as being no different from where it says "Town," than that puts that matter to bed.

oh you're right I was looking at the map wrong. I think you should just use the voting districts, some do contain parts of different towns but that's the understood limitation in DRA. So I wouldn't complicate things and try to split the district. Just try to keep towns together to your ability within DRA. And no Albany is an unorganized township, South Oxford is an unorganized territory, there's no municipal government.

So one uses the voting districts, they cannot be chopped, and for whether or not you have chopped a municipal unit, just compare the lines of the voting districts, to the "town" lines on the Leips map, and whatever that indicates, is what matters, and nothing else. Right?

[Torie]

and you can't split south oxford in DRA anyway...

Actually I showed above that you can. But whether the Leips map is accurate or not, pretending that it is, makes total sense to me. Looking for other maps on the internet does not. That still leaves the question, as to whether a participant can chop a voting district, in order to avoid a town chop, or to take in just one of several towns that are in the voting district.

It is odd that Leaps calls Albany an unorganized township, while you say it is a genuine organized town, with the larger South Oxford entity the real UT. But if the Leips map rules, and you say assume any designation of UT thereon, as being no different from where it says "Town," than that puts that matter to bed.

oh you're right I was looking at the map wrong. I think you should just use the voting districts, some do contain parts of different towns but that's the understood limitation in DRA. So I wouldn't complicate things and try to split the district. Just try to keep towns together to your ability within DRA. And no Albany is an unorganized township, South Oxford is an unorganized territory, there's no municipal government.

So one uses the voting districts, they cannot be chopped, and for whether or not you have chopped a municipal unit, just compare the lines of the voting districts, to the "town" lines on the Leaps map, and whatever that indicates, is what matters, and nothing else. Right?

wait, no, in your example there isn't a district that contains fragments of multiple towns. There are combinations of towns but it doesn't divide any. (South Oxford is UT so not a town) So I don't think there should be a problem.

No, the remaining issue was chopping a voting district that contains multiple towns to get better population equality by cherry picking only some of the towns in the VD. But you said no. It is probably true that no voting district chops a unorganized town, so that distinction does not matter. If a VD did, than it would matter as to whether or not an unorganized town is treated the same as an organized town.

[Torie]

and you can't split south oxford in DRA anyway...

Actually I showed above that you can. But whether the Leips map is accurate or not, pretending that it is, makes total sense to me. Looking for other maps on the internet does not. That still leaves the question, as to whether a participant can chop a voting district, in order to avoid a town chop, or to take in just one of several towns that are in the voting district.

It is odd that Leaps calls Albany an unorganized township, while you say it is a genuine organized town, with the larger South Oxford entity the real UT. But if the Leips map rules, and you say assume any designation of UT thereon, as being no different from where it says "Town," than that puts that matter to bed.

oh you're right I was looking at the map wrong. I think you should just use the voting districts, some do contain parts of different towns but that's the understood limitation in DRA. So I wouldn't complicate things and try to split the district. Just try to keep towns together to your ability within DRA. And no Albany is an unorganized township, South Oxford is an unorganized territory, there's no municipal government.

So one uses the voting districts, they cannot be chopped, and for whether or not you have chopped a municipal unit, just compare the lines of the voting districts, to the "town" lines on the Leaps map, and whatever that indicates, is what matters, and nothing else. Right?

wait, no, in your example there isn't a district that contains fragments of multiple towns. There are combinations of towns but it doesn't divide any. (South Oxford is UT so not a town) So I don't think there should be a problem.

Voting districts shouldn’t be an issue to use. Most of these towns are so small that they’re combined with other towns. The only ones we should avoid splitting are the towns with more than one precinct (Portland, Bangor, Lewiston, etc)

Those are cities, so that is an easy case.

[Torie]

It might carry weight which map is more exact if the maps otherwise tie, but whatever. And you might be right, that there is no voting district that takes in parts (slices, dices, bits, pieces, fragments) of two towns (are you sure?). But the participants will have to figure out digging out the town maps, which voting districts chop a town, and which do not (see map below where one town (South Oxford) is split into two voting districts, with one voting district therein also taking in another town (Stoneham) to confuse matters further). Good luck with that. The voting district numbers give no clue as to whether a split is involved or not.

Ah well. I had hope that one grouping might be better than the other.

So this would be my initial submission. I checked the town maps and there is only one county chop and no town chops and does not chop a UCC. CD 1 (blue) has a deviation of +75. I think this is as low as I can get erosity using counties as the primary unit and towns as the subunit.

Your map is using block groups, rather than VD's, right? So there is no partisan data, although obviously it could be closely estimated by redrawing a close approximation of the map using VD's. Everybody should draw using the same map I would think.

[Torie]

It might carry weight which map is more exact if the maps otherwise tie, but whatever. And you might be right, that there is no voting district that takes in parts (slices, dices, bits, pieces, fragments) of two towns (are you sure?). But the participants will have to figure out digging out the town maps, which voting districts chop a town, and which do not (see map below where one town (South Oxford) is split into two voting districts, with one voting district therein also taking in another town (Stoneham) to confuse matters further). Good luck with that. The voting district numbers give no clue as to whether a split is involved or not.

Ah well. I had hope that one grouping might be better than the other.

So this would be my initial submission. I checked the town maps and there is only one county chop and no town chops and does not chop a UCC. CD 1 (blue) has a deviation of +75. I think this is as low as I can get erosity using counties as the primary unit and towns as the subunit.

Your map is using block groups, rather than VD's, right? So there is no partisan data, although obviously it could be closely estimated by redrawing a close approximation of the map using VD's. Everybody should draw using the same map I would think.

The original map was drawn in voting district mode and because of combined towns I was left with a deviation of 521. To get the chop I wanted I switched to block group mode (swapping Chesterville and New Vineyard). I found that also had PVI info that matched the values that appeared in voting district mode. Since I had partisan data from the block groups and my preferred chop, I went with that.

What version of the DRA had PVI data for block groups? 2.2 did not.