Fair Redistricting (PA aftermath)

[jimrtex]

Okay, I feel like this would be a fun project. First I'm gonna need 2 democrats and 1 more republican plus an independent. We can try to run a mock bipartisan committee on redistricting in the gerrymandered states. For a map to pass, they would need 3/5 votes. After going through all the submissions we can put together a new map for the country. If anyone would like to join, please comment below! First come first serve, so again 2 Dems, 1 Rep (im already here) and 1 Ind. We can take up any of the states that have more than 1 district since I think all of them could be a little neater

This is fundamentally flawed, in the same way that the Arizona redistricting commission is. There, the two Republican and two Democrats chose an "independent" chairperson from persons submitted by retired judges.

One of the "independents" had a framed and signed picture of her with Nancy Pelosi. Another was so far left, that it was said that in comparison the Democratic Party was like Barry Goldwater. They chose the least worst, who turned out to be a sleeper agent.

The commission agreed to choose Democratic and Republican counsels. The two Democrats and the chair chose both counsels. As a GIS expert they chose a company that had never done redistricting work, but had done microtargetting exclusively for Democratic candidates. The chair made an agreement with the two Democrats that if they would support her ideas, she'd vote for theirs. The commission deliberately underpopulated Democratic legislative districts. The commission did not follow open meeting procedures, because the commission was established independently of those provisions. The chair and the GIS experts did some intimate redistricting at her house on weekends.

[jimrtex]

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

It could follow a procedure like that proposed for Ohio.

[jimrtex]

Hamlinmander.



Features: Keeps Portland-South Portland UCC whole.

Whole county version is Androscoggin, Cumberland, Lincoln, Sagahadoc, and York.

(+1.19% deviation).

Moving Litchfield and Monmouth (in Kennebec) reduces deviation to (+0.03% deviation). Victims were chosen because Kennebec is most populous county on boundary, two towns are somewhat distance from Augusta, and smooth the boundary somewhat.

[jimrtex]

I much prefer for two plans to be permitted per panelist, not just one.

I will take that as a proposed amendment that can be voted on by the panel. To be clear - you are drawing a distinction between the number of plans a panelist can submit compared to the number from other posters. This is not about the step when plans are put into the final pool for voting.

I don't have an opinion on how many plans other posters can submit, not yet anyway. But I think the way we have been moving so far suggests two is the maximum a panelist can submit, not one.

The thing is that if we let the panelists submit two maps, then they'll likely use their two choices on their own maps. I wanted more say from the public in the maps while keeping the flow relatively quick. If we increase the number of choices, then we get too many maps (this whole thing could take a year or something). The goal here is to create a plan with fair and similar districts. And considering that focus, when it comes down to choosing between two maps that one likes, I believe there is probably one you can choose that is ultimately the better fit.

Let's assume it takes a day to draw a district. If the states are drawn serially the process could bog down when we get to larger states. So I suggest that the states be divided into tiers, and handled in parallel.

So you could have:

ME-NH-RI-CT-WV-KY-SC-AL-MS-LA-AR-IA-NE-KS-OK-NM-UT-NV-ID-OR-HI

These would each be a week or less.

MA-MD-TN IN-WI-MN-MO-CO-AZ-WA

A week or so.

NJ-VA-NC-GA-OH-MI

A couple of weeks.

NY-PA-IL-FL

Up to a month.

TX-CA

Up to two months.

Their could be a thread for each, and each could be opened up for submissions in turn. Overall this would take three months. Or you could have fewer tiers and take somewhat longer.

[jimrtex]

I see that cvparty says there is an open spot on the panel -- is this still the case? If so, I would be interested in taking it.

yeet I'm assuming you'll be the Democrat? we shall commence Monday with Maine then (I still think we need another day to sort things out)

To help facilitate, I suggest that the panel begin to approve its rules. This is the panel as I understand it.
Singletxguyforfun (R)
LimoLiberal (R)
cvparty (I)
Ted Bessell (D)
TimTurner (D)

This is the first set of procedural rules.
1) Votes shall be cast by post with an X, the panelist's screen name and party initial.
2) All actions must be approved by at least 3 of the 5 panelists, with at least one from a (D) panelist and one from a (R) panelist.
3) Members can be removed for cause based on evidence of unfairness.
4) Any person may submit a plan for a state, but a person may not submit more than one plan per state.

I'd like to be able to submit multiple maps. If this becomes problematic, a limit could be set.

5) Official submissions will be by DRA with a drf file, though submissions in other forms may be accepted and translated into DRA. Translating a map into DRA does not count against the submission limit.

What is the .drf format? Are the DRA shapefiles and associated data files available?

6) Plans shall conform with the following criteria, and nonconforming plans will not be considered for submission:
6.1) The maximum population deviation of any district is 0.5% from the quota;
6.2) Districts in a plan must be contiguous and connected. That is it must be possible to go between political units within a district on public roads or ferries without leaving the district.
7) Plans will be evaluated on the following criteria that may be prioritized by vote of the panel:
7.1) the compactness/erosity of districts;
7.2) the number of chops of political units and subunits as established for each state;
7.3) the partisan polarization and competitiveness;
7.4) comparison of minority districts to current enacted plans;
7.5) the degree that districts avoid excess division of defined urban areas that span multiple political units (eg UCCs).

Should there be any criteria? Why not let the submitter provide a narrative?

If this set (or an amended version) is approved the panel can then consider the rules governing the order and selection of plans. The voting is open.

[jimrtex]

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.

Maine SOS web site has election results by town, and the Census Bureau has shapefiles and population totals by town. It should trivial to compensate for deficiencies in DRA.

[jimrtex]

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).

That is not true for Iowa. Townships are not independent governments (municipalities), but do have elected trustees.

Sweden: DJT 116, HRC 115
Stoneham: DJT 89, HRC 77

[jimrtex]

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. 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.

I use the 2010 voting districts option, not block groups. ME consolidates its voting districts across towns for polling efficiency. I believe that when towns are consolidated into a voting district the voting district consists only of whole towns so no chops are needed. In any case the panel has expressed less interest in exact equality as long is the maximum deviation is under 0.5%. So going from under 400 deviation to under 100 deviation may not carry much weight.

Maine conducts its elections by towns, except the unorganized towns, which are generally unorganized because there are no people to organize them.

The VTD's are what Maine submitted to the Census Bureau, and appear to be Senate-House intersections (they are relatively small because Maine has so many House districts). The numbers are of the form: sshhhi, where ss is the senate district, hhh is the house district, and i is an index.

[jimrtex]

Maine conducts its elections by towns, except the unorganized towns, which are generally unorganized because there are no people to organize them.

The VTD's are what Maine submitted to the Census Bureau, and appear to be Senate-House intersections (they are relatively small because Maine has so many House districts). The numbers are of the form: sshhhi, where ss is the senate district, hhh is the house district, and i is an index.

The last digit is the County Commissioner district.  Also, these are the pre-2013 State House, State Senate and County Commissioner districts.  I find the block groups much better overall for Maine, but they have issues too, as has been shown.

I'm working with Amanda Rector, who's Maine's State Economist but also the "Governor's liaison" to the Census Bureau's Redistricting Data Program, to get better voting districts in the future (although most of our conversations so far have concerned census block lines as the Redistricting Data Program was in its Block Boundary Suggestion Project phase until last year).  Like each town with its own polling place being its own voting district, and also each ward in a city being its own voting district, like New Hampshire does now (their 2000 voting districts were as bad as or worse than Maine's, but they really improved in 2010).  Or perhaps the voting districts could be the intersections of the towns/city wards as well as the State House districts, State Senate districts and County Commissioner districts.  The Congressional district lines in Kennebec County haven't been voting district lines there (unless they're also one of the other three district lines), but if you had the borders of organized towns as voting district boundaries that would take care of the Congressional district lines anyway, with all the Congressional districts Maine has had in recent memory at least.

In a way it would be better if the Census Bureau got rid of VTD's, since they often change after the census, as state and local election boundaries change. Alternatively, they should retabulate the census results like they do for legislative and congressional districts.

[jimrtex]

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

Census Bureau.

Geography > Maps&Data > Reference Maps > Census Reference Maps > County Block Maps.

For a given county, the 000 map is the county index map to the other maps, but is probably sufficient for your purpose.

Geography > Maps&Data > TIGER products > KML - Cartographic Boundary Files

Select the county subdivision file, and drag into Google Earth.

Geography > Maps&Data > TIGER products > TIGER/Line Shapefiles

Geography > Maps&Data > TIGER products > Cartographic Shapefiles

Either can be used with a GIS program such as QGIS.

You can also use American Fact Finder and draw a map.

[jimrtex]

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?

Yes.

Voting Districts in Maine are fairly arbitrary and have little to do with actual voting practices. A state can tell the Census Bureau that we want data tabulated for these areas.

In Hudson, NY somebody probably gave the census bureau a paper map of precinct boundaries. The Census Bureau probably said we don't split block boundaries, so we'll just combine the submitted 7 precincts into 3 VTDs and adjust some boundary lines to follow streets - including the wrong streets in some places (remember that Ward 5 had 2 precincts, and until fairly recently Ward 3 also had two).

The census bureau tabulates the census data based on VTD's, and then the folks in Hudson treat it as gospel for wards 3 and 5, and realize that wards 1, 2, and 4 have to be estimated from "VTD 1-1 2-1 4-1" and botch that. Since 2010, the Census Bureau has permitted VTD's to follow non-visible boundaries. Right now, VTD definitions are being updated. The mayor or county board of elections might have some leverage with regard to the census liaisons in Albany, who otherwise will mostly be interested in their bon bon supply.

Back to Maine. Maine doesn't have particularly useful VTD's. They are the intersection of house, senate, and county commissioner's districts. At best they could be described as areas with the same ballot style. Maine does not administer elections at the county level. They are administered by towns. Someone preparing the DRA data had to take the town results and aggregate them into VTD's. DRA should probably use towns and wards in larger cities for its basic units. But if you were redistricting Maine, you would use towns.

[jimrtex]

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.

The Census Bureau divides counties into county subdivisions. In the northeastern quarter of the country, they correspond to minor civil divisions, towns and cities. In the rest of the country they are pretty arbitrary.

In Maine, not all territory has an organized government. Some areas were never settled, and never had a formal local government. In other areas, the local government has been deorganized. That happened in 1933 to Albany town. It reverted to Albany township. Townships represent the territory, towns represent the government.

Through 1950, the Census Bureau reported the population for these areas without local government. In 1960, they reported the population in each county that did not have a local government.

Since then, the Census Bureau has reported areas without local government as county subdivisions, designated by the Census Bureau as Unorganized Territory. In Oxford County, there are three such areas, South Oxford UT, North Oxford UT, and Milton UT. Remember, these are designations by the Census Bureau.

In Maine, "Voting Districts" are NOT districts used for voting. The Census Bureau permits states to designate areas as VTD's which it tabulates census data for. For example, in Hudson, there are 3 VTD's. One corresponds to roughly precincts 1-1, 2-1, and 4-1, one corresponds to precincts 3-1 and 3-2, and one corresponds to precincts 5-1 and 5-2. These are not identical to either the old ward boundaries, nor to the areas actually used for elections. Whoever prepared the election data for DRA for Hudson, presumably totaled the ward results for 1, 2, and 4 and assigned that to "VTD 1-1 2-1 4-1", for 2016, they would have used the new wards, even though they don't correspond to the map.

DRA has made a decision to use "Voting Districts". In some states these do correspond to election precincts. In others the election results have to allocated. In Maine and Hudson, this means that election data reported by the state has to be adjusted to match the chosen census geography.

In Maine, elections are conducted by towns. There are no county boards of elections. This is a problem if there is an area with voters, but no government. State law provides that the county provide for polling places for these areas. In some cases, the county contracts with a neighboring town. Voters from the townships are marked with a "T" so that they are not permitted to vote in town elections.

Albany Township is unusual in that it has a substantial population, greater than some organized towns in Oxford County. It has 800 persons in 1900, and had declined to around 240 by 1950, probably due to a decline in logging jobs, and perhaps to establishment of the White Mountain National Forest, if private land was being purchased. It has since rebounded to around 500 persons (it appears that 80% or so of the South Oxford UT population is in Albany). You don't need to be a logger to live in the forest. You can have a second home, that becomes a first home. You can drive into Norway or Rumford to work or for groceries. Albany is only about half in the national forest, so someone might have a home in the woods, and rent a bed and breakfast, either extra rooms or an adjacent cabin.

So it appears that Albany Township votes in Albany and the county has appointed a municipal clerk and register. Mason Township and Batchelder Grant, the portions of the South Oxford UT to the west are entirely in the national forest and much less populous. I have not found out where they vote. It would make sense to vote in Bethel, since that is the same senate, house, and commissioner's district. You would only have to keep the township voters from voting in town races.