Fair redistricting: Texas

[cvparty]

Hello, Atlas, and welcome to our fair redistricting project! We will be creating fair and representative congressional districts through a bipartisan panel of me (I), Singletxguyforfun (R), Sol (R), OPEN (D), and TimTurner (D). It is essential that you read the rules here.

Status

Submissions are OPEN until 6/20, 8:00 AM EST! Feel free to submit up to TWO maps maximum, add a narrative/explanation to your map, and give feedback on other people's maps!

State order and directory
NC - SC - GA - AL - MS - TN - AR - LA - FL - TX
*You have the entire order here, so try to stay ahead and have maps in advance.

[cvparty]

I know Forsyth and Guilford are both split, but keeping one whole would require an awkward split of one of the Triad cities. I figured an urban district that keeps all three cities intact and together while having the more rural parts with the 11th would make the most sense. The 3rd was kind of leftovers but I-40 runs perfectly throughout it so that actually turns out ok
1: R+10.92
2: D+4.66
3: R+11.05
4: D+2.92
5: D+6.99
6: D+14.93
7: R+16.02
8: D+9.07
9: R+10.85
10: D+13.05
11: R+19.9
12: R+18.39
13: R+8.93
Delegation is usually 7R-6D. Dems could flip CD-13 in a wave; Reps could pick up CD-4 and possibly CD-2 in a good year

[cvparty]

When will the team score the maps?

Most of us have already voted. I think we're waiting on one more or we have a vacancy or something. We're working on 4 threads at the same time but we should be done soon

TimTurner needs to respond to me idk what he's doin :/ honestly imma just move on to the next states by Friday cuz it's been like over a week and we need to move ON

[cvparty]

There was a tie between cvparty and muon2 in Condorcet, so IRV was used to tiebreak. cvparty's map wins for North Carolina!

NOW WE ARE ON SOUTH CAROLINA!

edit: I calculated wrong. There was not a tie, cvparty's map won.

[cvparty]

Here's my SC map

1: R+4 (old R+10)
2: D+4 (old R+12)
3: R+18 (old R+19)
4: R+18 (old R+15)
5: R+14 (old R+9)
6: D+3 (old D+19)
7: R+10 (old R+9)

second map with less county splits

1: R+4.08
2: D+3.97
3: R+17.46
4: R+18.75
5: R+13.85
6: D+3.41
7: R+9.58

[cvparty]

Can we see the rankings?

Are members of the ranking team allowed to vote for their own maps?

yes (soon) and yes

[cvparty]

I got a lol about their use from one of the panelists, so I'm probably not going to invest the time to do a calculation on plans other my own.

omg no! i was saying LOL to solid who said “Sol is actually getting better scores with his very flawed plan than other plans that actually use sensible design methodology”

[cvparty]

I showed that it was possible to draw two CDs with majority BVAP. Though the VRA is not a consideration, communities of interest are. The black population in southern SC would qualify as a community of interest.

The goal is also fair maps, and that can mean partisan fairness; certainly that's what's being litigated in the courts. SC is an R+8 PVI and that projects to an ideal delegation of 4R, 2D, and 1 even seat in PVI to have now skew. My submission had a delegation of 5R, 1D, and 1 even.

As an alternate plan B, I can add 3 county chops for a total of 6 and lose the Charleston UCC pack. The new CD 2 is D+4.7 with a 43.7% BVAP, so it moves the plan closer to partisan fairness (5D 2R) while providing an opportunity to elect the black candidate of choice.

Here's the original map and a zoom showing the modified CD 1 and CD 2. The Charleston chop follows I-26 into central Charleston. The Aiken chop is shifted and there is a minor adjustment of the Anderson chop to balance population. Revised stats follow the map.

You likely have the highlighted inverted.

naw

[cvparty]

When are we going to move onto Georgia? South Carolina should have ended 3 days ago according to the deadlines on the original post.

that’s the deadline for submissions, when voting is finished then we move on. (don’t want two states to overlap in each thread)

[cvparty]

When are we going to move onto Georgia? South Carolina should have ended 3 days ago according to the deadlines on the original post.

that’s the deadline for submissions, when voting is finished then we move on. (don’t want two states to overlap in each thread)

Ah, okay, thanks! So when will the voting finish?

depends when the panelists have finished ranking the maps, we've just moved on to the second round. I'm hoping by Friday but *some* of the panelists are a tad slow to respond. by the way, I'll post the first round results for each state now

[cvparty]

First round - due to the large number of SC maps, each panelist was required to reject at least 5 of them. A map required at least two approving votes to pass. ASV-B, True Federalist-B, muon2-B, weatherboy-A and -B were eliminated. Here's the breakdown:

Sol
cvparty-A - N
cvparty-B - N
AustralianSwingVoter-A - Y
AustralianSwingVoter-B - N
Singletxguyforfun-A - Y
Singletxguyforfun-B - Y
MB - Y
weatherboy1102-A - N
weatherboy1102-B - N
True Federalist-A - Y
True Federalist-B - N
muon2-A - N
jimrtex-A - N
jimrtex-B - N
muon2-B - N

"I was a good bit harsher here, naying any map without a clear black-dominated district. This was my most important criterion. muon2-B was on the fence; with a BVAP 2 or 3 points higher I might have approved it."

me
cvparty-A - Y
cvparty-B - Y
AustralianSwingVoter-A - N
AustralianSwingVoter-B - Y
Singletxguyforfun-A - N
Singletxguyforfun-B - Y
MB - Y
weatherboy1102-A - N
weatherboy1102-B - Y
True Federalist-A - Y
True Federalist-B - N
muon2-A - Y
jimrtex-A - Y
jimrtex-B - Y
muon2-B - N

I believe I rejected the maps I did for splitting up metro areas weirdly, mainly Charleston. But feel free to ask about the rationale for my vote on a particular map.

Singletxguyforfun
cvparty-A N
cvparty-B Y
AustralianSwingVoter-A Y
AustralianSwingVoter-B N
Singletxguyforfun-A Y
Singletxguyforfun-B Y
MB N
weatherboy1102-A Y
weatherboy1102-B N
True Federalist-A Y
True Federalist-B N
muon2-A N
jimrtex-A N
jimrtex-B N
muon2-B N

no comment.

TimTurner
Y: cvparty-A
Y: cvparty-B
AustralianSwingVoter-A
AustralianSwingVoter-B
Y: Singletxguyforfun-A
Singletxguyforfun-B
Y: MB
weatherboy1102-A
weatherboy1102-B
Y: True Federalist-A
Y: True Federalist-B
Y: muon2-A*
Y: jimrtex-A
Y: jimrtex-B
Y: muon2-B

no comment.

[cvparty]

they were posted...

[cvparty]

wait... according to your post, tim didn't vote on my two maps.  How does that work?

He did, he just put Y for the 10 (maximum) maps he could approve. The remaining 5 are presumably the NO votes

[cvparty]

First round - due to the large number of SC maps, each panelist was required to reject at least 5 of them. A map required at least two approving votes to pass. ASV-B, True Federalist-B, muon2-B, weatherboy-A and -B were eliminated. Here's the breakdown:

I suggest that next time, that panelists be limited to approving no more than half (i.e. half of 15 is 7.5 is and that you get a fifth panelist.

As it was, there were 31 approval votes (10, 10, 6, and 5), which appropriately distributed could have result in all 15 plans advancing. If all 4 panelist had approved 10, then you have the possibility of 40 approvals of 2.67 per plan.

Requiring 7 or 8 approvals would make the more discriminating panelists consider which of the other plans were the least worst; and the more generous panelists consider which of their approved plans were the least best.

With 5 panelists approving 8 plans, you would have 40 approvals or 2.67 per plan, but if a plan required 3 approvals it would cut down on the advancers.

Would it be possible to get a group of Democratic panelists and let them rank only one State at a  time?

Torie
Kevinsat
etc.?

If you only get three instead of four, then only do three states at a time.

I was wary of rejecting too many maps and figured too much would be better than too little. But yes I'll probably try to narrow it down further next time. And I am trying to find a good fifth panelist

[cvparty]

I'm also having trouble scoring cvparty A. It appears that the Beaufort county part of CD 1 is only contiguous to the rest of the district by water contiguity without a bridge or ferry. That violates one of the map requirements.

Well, the literal requirement is that they just be connected by water. I added that it should have something like a bridge or ferry to guard against some wacky gerrymandered districts that are technically contiguous by water. I thought I connected Beaufort and Charleston by US 17 hmm, I'll update my map and add those two voting districts in Beaufort tho

[cvparty]

I'm having trouble scoring the jimrtex plans here. They both seem to violate the 0.5% maximum deviation rule. I know earlier in the thread there were versions of his that did not, but I'm not sure what then is plan A and what is plan B.

I believe his first two maps were his submissions

[cvparty]

Considering how convoluted and arbitrary our county borders are, giving preeminence to avoiding county chops might work in a mathematical sense, but not when it comes to putting reasonable districts together. Of the ten SC finalists, muon2 A was the worst in my opinion, not one of the two best. That second district was particularly heinous even tho it resulted from having the whole county districts 5, 6, and 7.

i feel you :/

[cvparty]

1: R+16
2: D+5
3: R+21
4: D+29
5: D+30
6: R+18
7: D+1
8: R+14
9: R+31
10: R+19
11: EVEN
12: D+2
13: D+6
14: R+28

[cvparty]

-snip-

I LOVE this map!

fanks!!

[cvparty]

EDIT: HERE'S A BETTER MAP

1: R+16
2: R+33
3: D+1
4: R+27
5: R+19
6: D+7
7: R+16

[cvparty]

So Muon2 was talking about school districts as boundaries that could be used as guidelines for how to split a large County in some cases. I disagree heavily.

https://www.bcps.org/schools/boundaries-hs.pdf

Look at the ugly border between Kenwood HS and Chesapeake HS in the Eastern section of the County.

do you know what guideline means

[cvparty]

Also, since I didn’t want to start my own thread, does anyone have a fair Mississippi map (2R-1D-1swing)? If not I guess I’ll make one later

ooh I got one, we're not on MS yet tho, but it comes soon we can do it next instead of TN if you want

[cvparty]

The two main ways of drawing Mississippi are with 1 safe D seat, or 1 lean D seat and 1 swingy seat. Careful not to gerrymander...

[cvparty]

Jackson is kept whole.
1: R+16
2: D+4
3: R+5
4: R+21

[cvparty]

Jackson is kept whole.
1: R+16
2: D+4
3: R+5
4: R+21

1. R+15 (+2413)
2. D+12 (-102) (62% Black, 34% White)
3. R+12 (-224)
4. R+21 (-2086)

CD 1: (+373); BVAP 26.5%; PVI R+14
CD 2: (-81); BVAP 49.6%; PVI D+3.2
CD 3: (+1795); BVAP 41.5%; PVI R+5.1
CD 4: (-2086); BVAP 20.8%; PVI R+21

Dist 1 (Blue): BVAP 23.5%, R+17
Dist 2 (Green): BVAP 48.4%, D+2
Dist 3 (Yellow): BVAP 47.5%, D+2
Dist 4 (Red): BVAP 19.1%, R+24

No counties, the Jackson metro is kept whole and there remains a Black majority VRA district.

District 1 R+11.72 - 40.9 - 58.1
District 2 D+03.95 - 54.6 - 44.8 - 53.5 African American
District 3 R+09.96 - 42.1 - 57.1
District 4 R+19.41 - 33.0 - 66.0