Fair redistricting: Illinois

[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 6/9, 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
KY - IN - OH - MI - WI - MN - IA - NE - KS - OK - MO - IL
*You have the entire order here, so try to stay ahead and have maps in advance.

[Sol]

Here's an initial proposal for Kentucky. Can't say I'm completely happy with it--there are more cuts than I'd like--but I think something like it seems the fairest. I took the liberty of renumbering the districts from West to East.




There are splits in Butler, Garrard, and Scott Counties. No UCCs are split and no municipalities are split except Louisville and cities along county lines.

KY-01: Deviation -6, PVI R+20.23
KY-02: Dv. +174, PVI R+23.81
KY-03: Dv. +8, PVI R+19
KY-04: Dv. -133, PVI D+5.67
KY-05: Dv. -279, PVI R+9.52
KY-06: Dv. +236, PVI R+27.44

[muon2]

This is a plan I posted in Nov 2011,so I'll submit it here. It chops no counties except Jefferson/Louisville and was designed to have compact districts. The concept of UCCs didn't exist then so it has one extra cover chop. We also didn't have an erosity measure back then, but I think it should score well. The drf file was long ago deleted, so I've had to reconstruct the plan from scratch.

Edit - I looked at the impact of the UCC and it turns out that by shifting just 6 counties I can preserve the erosity, improve the inequality and keep the UCC whole. CD 6 uses the I-64 corridor to link Lexington to Ashland.

As a side note, if the chop into Jefferson comes from the south instead of the southeast, the PVI drops from D+5.7 to D+5.0, which just pushes it into the competitive range. I'm not doing that since the other CDs are so Pub, and shifting the chop costs a point of erosity.



CD 1: -1234; R+20.21
CD 2: +862; R+20.69
CD 3: -133; D+5.67
CD 4: +697; R+17.76
CD 5: -890; R+30.25
CD 6: +698; R+10.52

[muon2]

As a reminder, there are two UCCs in KY. The UCCs were created to recognize metro areas as community of interest and avoid fragmenting their population into adjacent rural areas.

The Louisville UCC consists of Jefferson, Bullitt, and Oldham; it is 1.21 times a CD so there should be two CDs covering the three counties and one CD entirely within to meet the UCC test.

The Covington UCC consists of Kenton, Boone, and Campbell; it is 0.51 of a CD and only needs one CD to cover it.

The Ashland UCC consists of Boyd and Greenup counties; it is 0.12 of a CD and only needs one CD to cover it.

[cvparty]

I'm probably just going to send this directly to a ranked vote since there are only two maps

[jimrtex]

As a reminder, there are two UCCs in KY. The UCCs were created to recognize metro areas as community of interest and avoid fragmenting their population into adjacent rural areas.

The Louisville UCC consists of Jefferson, Bullitt, and Oldham; it is 1.21 times a CD so there should be two CDs covering the three counties and one CD entirely within to meet the UCC test.

The Covington UCC consists of Kenton, Boone, and Campbell; it is 0.51 of a CD and only needs one CD to cover it.

Huntington-Ashland doesn't get any respect.

[jimrtex]

I'm probably just going to send this directly to a ranked vote since there are only two maps

I'll likely have a map.

[cvparty]

I'm probably just going to send this directly to a ranked vote since there are only two maps

I'll likely have a map.

okie, no worries as long as you submit before the deadline. In fact, I think I'll extend it to 8:00 AM just to give everyone a little more time (I don't really expect many more ways of drawing KY though)

[jimrtex]

Kentucky has 15 Area Development Districts (ADD):



We can group them into congressional regions.

KY-1 (West): Purchase, Pennyrile, Green River (0.870)
KY-2 (Central): Barren River, Lincoln Trail, Lake Cumberland (1.052)
KY-6 (East): Buffalo Trace, Gateway, FIVCO, Big Sandy, Kentucky River, Cumberland Valley (1.065)
KY-3 (Louisville) KY-4 (Louisville, Cincinnati suburbs): KIPDA, Northern Kentucky (1.933)
KY-5 (Lexington)  Bluegrass (1.065)

The three metropolitan regions have a population equivalent to 2.998, while the three rural regions have a population equivalent to 3.002. We can balance the three rural regions by shifting counties to the west, largely maintaining the ADD regions. Greater importance was attached to population equality (without splitting counties), while largely maintaining regions, over erosity. Maintaining regions can be considered as measure of conciseness, as an alternate to compactness.

Since KY-5 (Lexington) is overpopulated, we shift that to KY-3, 4, and Franklin is the right size. Jefferson (1.025) is slightly large, and it will be divided.



KY-1 (West) 0.47%, R 20.79
KY-2 (Central) -0.18% R 23.48
KY-3 (Louisville) 0.04%*** D 4.8
KY-4 (Louisville, Cincinnati suburbs) 0.04%*** R 17.69
KY-5 (Lexington) -0.29% R 11.04
KY-6 (East) -0.08% R26.66

Standard Deviation 0.24%.

This assumes a perfect split of Jefferson. KY-3 and KY-4 will diverge a bit. Internet Exploder crashed as I did a save.

These maps show the division of Jefferson.





KY-1 (West) +0.47%; R 20.79; A 90, B 6, H 2, As 2
KY-2 (Central) -0.18%; R 23.48; A 90, B 5, H 2, As 1
KY-3 (Louisville) +0.04% D 5.67; A 73, B 19, H 4, As 2
KY-4 (Louisville, Cincinnati suburbs) +0.04% R 17.76; A 92, B 4, H 2, As 1
KY-5 (Lexington) -0.29%; R 11.04; A 86, B 8, H 4, As 2
KY-6 (East) -0.08%; R26.66; A 97, b 2, H 1

Standard deviation 0.24%

[cvparty]

KY-1 (West) 0.47%
KY-2 (Central) -0.18%
KY-3 (Louisville) 0.04%***
KY-4 (Louisville, Cincinnati suburbs) 0.04%***
KY-5 (Lexington) -0.29%
KY-6 (East) -0.08%

PVI?

[muon2]

I count three proposals for KY. Since all the plans are solid 5 R - 1 D, they will all get a SKEW of 1 and POLARIZATION of 12. I will treat jimrtex's plan for Jefferson the same as the other 2. The complete scores are:

Plan	-S-	-P-	-I-	-C-	-E-
Sol	1	12	4	4	50
muon2	1	12	6	1	48
jimrtex	1	12	10	1	52

SPICE scores would eliminate jimrtex by muon2.

[cvparty]

Sol's map wins for Kentucky! NEXT IS INDIANA

[Strudelcutie4427]

Here's my Indiana. Not too much interesting about it, it's boring and blocky with only 8 County chops only for population equality. numbers in parenthases are the deviation so none of them exceeded +/- 1000 people

1- D+8 (-850)
2- R+12 (9)
3- R+17 (539)
4- R+17 (-238)
5- R+14 (420)
6- R+14 (24)
7- D+16 (-259)
8- R+16 (-180)
9- R+17 (539)

[jimrtex]

Sol's map wins for Kentucky!

Were the results published somewhere?

[cvparty]

Sol's map wins for Kentucky!

Were the results published somewhere?

would you like me to make a spreadsheet of all the state votes?

[jimrtex]

Sol's map wins for Kentucky!

Were the results published somewhere?

would you like me to make a spreadsheet of all the state votes?

Yes.

[cvparty]

Sol's map wins for Kentucky!

Were the results published somewhere?

would you like me to make a spreadsheet of all the state votes?

Yes.

kk i'll make it over the weekend (super busy this week )

[cvparty]

boop

1: D+6
2: R+8
3: R+18
4: R+9
5: R+14
6: R+15
7: D+15
8: R+14
9: R+22

[jimrtex]

Indiana has 15 regional councils of government.



Unlike some states where the state government defines regions, these appear to be more voluntary (Indiana statute simply says counties can form the RCOG's). There is a large area in the central part of Indiana without ROCG's. I created three regions: (1) The seven counties south around Indianapolis, including 5 of the 6 counties in the UCC (The 6th, Madison(Anderson) is a single-county RCOG); (2) The three counties around Lafayette; and (3) five counties south of Indianapolis, including Monroe (Bloomington). In addition, Blackford was added to the region that largely surrounds it.

The regions were grouped into areas of approximately one district.



1. (Northwest, Gary) 1.071. Northwestern 1.071.
2. (North Central, South Bend, Elkhart) 1.021. Michiana 0.817, Kankakee-Iroquois 0.204.
3. (Northeast, Fort Wayne) 0.946. Northeastern 0.638, Region III 0.308.
4. (Central-North, Lafayette, Kokomo) 0.634. North Central 0.317, "Boilermaker" 0.317.
5-6. (Central, Indianapolis, Anderson) 2.485. "Naptown" 2.302, Madison 0.183.
7. (Eastern, Muncie, Richmond) 0.923. East Central 0.376, Eastern 0.200, Southeastern 0.347.
8. (South Central, Terre Haute, Bloomington) 0.946, West Central 0.316, Southern 0.222, "Southern Independents" 0.408.
9. (Ohio River, Evansville, Tell City, New Albany) 0.973, South West 0.415, Indiana 15 0.174, River Hills 0.384.

Kankakee-Iroquious was placed with Michiana mainly for population regions. Area 4 is undersized, with the intent that it be placed with Area 5-6 to create a third district that was about 1/2 in the Indianapolis area.

This is the final whole-county alignment.



IN-1 Northwest (Gary). -0.03% The three county region was too populous. Rather than splitting LaPorte, it was dropped, and three rural counties to the south were added. Newton and Jasper are part of the Chicago MSA, due to commuting into Gary, or possibly long distance into Chicago.

IN-2 North Central (South Bend, Elkhart) +0.46% After adding LaPorte it was possible to add Starke to get to close to the quota.

IN-3 Northeast (Fort Wayne) -0.25%. The two RCOGs were a bit short. Adding Miami hit the target.

I next worked on the Indianapolis UCC. I wanted two whole-county districts within the 6-county UCC, with ideally the remnant in a single district. Madison, Hamilton, Marion, and Johnson have a population about equivalent to two districts (2.012). But this would likely require a long corridor to connect Hamilton to Johnson OR division of Marion between two districts, In addition Hendricks and Hancock would be in different districts, are connected by a giant U south of Johnson. So instead, Hendricks replaced Johnson. This has a bit more population (2.020), but permits the link to Hendricks be along the Hamilton-Marion county line, and permits creation of another district wholly in Marion. Also the two surplus counties from the UCC, Hancock and Johnson can be placed in a single district along with another metro county of Shelby.

IN-5 (Northern Indianapolis suburbs, Anderson) +0.99%.

IN-6 (Indianapolis) +0.99%.

Placing the surplus UCC population on the east, required a reconfiguration of the district to the west and east.

IN-4 (West, Terre Haute, Lafayette, Kokomo) -0.33% This is an agglomeration of counties based on proximity. It includes most of the Wabash River once it enters the state.

IN-7 (East, Indianapolis eastern, southern suburbs, Columbus, Richmond) -0.28%. The smaller manufacturing centers are a reasonable match for the Indianapolis suburbs, which will constituted about 35% of the district.

The configuration of IN-4 and IN-7 resulted in a need to reconfigure the southern areas.

IN-8 (Southwest, Evansville, Tell City) +0.35% This includes 3 regions plus a few counties on the north. Elimination of the Ohio River district may reflect modern transportation and economic reality.

IN-9 (Southeast, Louisville Suburbs, Bloomington) -2.06% Bloomington doesn't really fit with its neighbors as a liberal arts university plunked down in a corn field it doesn't even have the agricultural interests that Purdue does.

[jimrtex]

This is my final map.





Marion County was divided across the three northern townships. In the east it dips down to include the city of Lawrence which is not part of the Unigov. In the NNW it is narrowed down a bit to avoid cutting into predominately black areas of Indianapolis (IN-6 is slightly more black than Marion as a whole).

Because the four-county area has a slight excess of population (2.020) a small portion of Marion County (southeast corner) is shifted to NC-7. NC-9 is slightly underpopulated in the whole county version (0.979). Four more rural townships in Johnson County, Blue River, Ninevah, Hensley, and Union are shifted. The small portion of Bargersville that is in Union Township is retained.

Townships in Indiana are relatively weak. They do not assume the roles of cities, and many of their former functions have been transferred to county governments. On the other hand they exist in areas where there are city governments. There are nine functioning township governments in Marion County that are independent of the Unigov. For this reason, I don't think that chops of townships should be considered as significant, though they may be handy for drawing nices square boundaries.

IN-1 (Northwest, Gary) -0.03%, D+5.68 A69, B17, H11, As1, O1.
IN-2 (North Central, South Bend, Elkhart) +0.46%, R+9.28 A83, B7, H7, As1, O1.
IN-3 (Northeast, Fort Wayne) -0.25%, R+17.30, A88, B6, H4, As1, O1.
IN-4 (West, Terre Haute, Lafayette, Kokomo) -0.33%, R+14.35, A89, H4, B3, As2, O1.
IN-5 (Northern, Western Indianapolis suburbs) -0.11%, R+10.57, A84, B8, H4, As3, O1.
IN-6 (Indianapolis, Central and Southern) -0.18%, D+12.75, A62, B26, H8. As2, O1.
IN-7 (East, Muncie, Richmond, Eastern, Southern Indianapolis suburbs) +0.00%, R+18.22, A93, B3, H2, As1, O1.
IN-8 (Southwest, Evansville, Tell City) +0.35%, R+18.06. A94, B3, H2, O1, AS1.
IN-9 (Southeast, New Albany, Louisville suburbs, Cincinnati ex/suburbs, Bloomington, Columbus) -0.09%, R+11.73, A92, H3, B3, As2, O1.

Standard Deviation 0.25%

[muon2]

Sol's map wins for Kentucky!

Were the results published somewhere?

would you like me to make a spreadsheet of all the state votes?

Yes.

kk i'll make it over the weekend (super busy this week )

What's the status of the KY results? I have more than a passing interest. I'm involved with some graduate level academic research on redistricting algorithms, and any feedback about which maps were preferred over others may find its way into that research. Even better would be comments about the maps, but that doesn't seem to be the way panelists want to react. Of course if people want to say why they voted for a particular plan, I'll dutifully make note.

On a side note: Shouldn't Sol be moved into the open Dem spot? Then a Pub or at least an indy would take the second R spot.

[Torie]

Sol's map wins for Kentucky!

Were the results published somewhere?

would you like me to make a spreadsheet of all the state votes?

Yes.

kk i'll make it over the weekend (super busy this week )

What's the status of the KY results? I have more than a passing interest. I'm involved with some graduate level academic research on redistricting algorithms, and any feedback about which maps were preferred over others may find its way into that research. Even better would be comments about the maps, but that doesn't seem to be the way panelists want to react. Of course if people want to say why they voted for a particular plan, I'll dutifully make note.

On a side note: Shouldn't Sol be moved into the open Dem spot? Then a Pub or at least an indy would take the second R spot.

The KY maps are all so similar, that it is hard to generate much passion about which map is best. The Sol and Muon2 maps appear to be  almost identical, except that Sol has more chops to get down inequality (not my bag, but that is a matter of taste), while the Jimrtex has some extra erosity that appears not to really be necessary (with that jut into Laurel County looking particularly unfortunate).

[jimrtex]

Sol's map wins for Kentucky!

Were the results published somewhere?

would you like me to make a spreadsheet of all the state votes?

Yes.

kk i'll make it over the weekend (super busy this week )

What's the status of the KY results? I have more than a passing interest. I'm involved with some graduate level academic research on redistricting algorithms, and any feedback about which maps were preferred over others may find its way into that research. Even better would be comments about the maps, but that doesn't seem to be the way panelists want to react. Of course if people want to say why they voted for a particular plan, I'll dutifully make note.

On a side note: Shouldn't Sol be moved into the open Dem spot? Then a Pub or at least an indy would take the second R spot.

The KY maps are all so similar, that it is hard to generate much passion about which map is best. The Sol and Muon2 maps appear to be  almost identical, except that Sol has more chops to get down inequality (not my bag, but that is a matter of taste), while the Jimrtex has some extra erosity that appears not to really be necessary (with that jut into Laurel County looking particularly unfortunate).

Laurel gives better equality, while avoiding chops and maintaining regional integrity.

[cvparty]

Sol's map wins for Kentucky!

Were the results published somewhere?

would you like me to make a spreadsheet of all the state votes?

Yes.

kk i'll make it over the weekend (super busy this week )

What's the status of the KY results? I have more than a passing interest. I'm involved with some graduate level academic research on redistricting algorithms, and any feedback about which maps were preferred over others may find its way into that research. Even better would be comments about the maps, but that doesn't seem to be the way panelists want to react. Of course if people want to say why they voted for a particular plan, I'll dutifully make note.

On a side note: Shouldn't Sol be moved into the open Dem spot? Then a Pub or at least an indy would take the second R spot.

I actually want the panelists to make comments, but it’s so difficult to have the others even just vote. I’d be happy to share my opinion though. I thought Sol’s grouping of Lexington and Frankfort made sense. I didn’t particularly like the way your map split that area among four districts. Also, Sol’s KY-05 and KY-01 reflected the ancestrally Dem parts of the state well imo. I look at pop density and voting trend maps primarily in forming my ideas about good district lines

About Sol’s role, there aren’t many Republicans so I’m just having Sol acting as a Republican. If a Republican does want to join then I would move Sol to a Dem. I know there might be concerns about partisan skew, but having 2 Ds and 2 Rs isn’t for them to want to gerrymander for their party, we’re all trying to follow the fair nonpartisan goal

[muon2]

Sol's map wins for Kentucky!

Were the results published somewhere?

would you like me to make a spreadsheet of all the state votes?

Yes.

kk i'll make it over the weekend (super busy this week )

What's the status of the KY results? I have more than a passing interest. I'm involved with some graduate level academic research on redistricting algorithms, and any feedback about which maps were preferred over others may find its way into that research. Even better would be comments about the maps, but that doesn't seem to be the way panelists want to react. Of course if people want to say why they voted for a particular plan, I'll dutifully make note.

On a side note: Shouldn't Sol be moved into the open Dem spot? Then a Pub or at least an indy would take the second R spot.

The KY maps are all so similar, that it is hard to generate much passion about which map is best. The Sol and Muon2 maps appear to be  almost identical, except that Sol has more chops to get down inequality (not my bag, but that is a matter of taste), while the Jimrtex has some extra erosity that appears not to really be necessary (with that jut into Laurel County looking particularly unfortunate).

I tried to take a different approach for Lexington. As opposed to making it a cluster of counties surrounded by other districts, I ran it out to WV along the I 64 corridor. It turns out that had a positive effect in reducing erosity. However, one of my early observations is that people are most comfortable voting for district designs they are used to seeing in their respective states. The fact that other designs might perform better on objective metrics doesn't seem to convince voters.