Fair redistricting: Illinois

[Dr. MB]

I am WITHDRAWING my old submission. This is the new submission.




PVI is the same on all except districts 6 and 15.

District 6 is now R+11. 15 is now R+12.

[muon2]

I'll use this opportunity to renew my call for comments on all maps from those voting, but even others are welcome to say what they like or not about any of the maps.

[jimrtex]

OH-4 (Columbus - Columbus) 97% of the district is in the city of Columbus, Columbus itself is too large for a district, but 91% of the city is in Columbus. The areas of Columbus that are in OH-5 provide contiguity to cities such as Worthington, Upper Arlington, Whitehall, Bexley, and some more populated unincorporated enclaves. Some of the tentacles, such as that between Dublin and Hilliard are trimmed back. Three eviscerated townships: Franklin, Clinton, and Mifflin, parts of two others: Perry, Blendon, and Truro, and two isolated villages: Valleyview and Minerva Park are also included in OH-4.

-0.12%, D+19.77, A 63, B 26, H 5, As 4, O 2.

There are several Columbus-area noncontiguous parts.

I lost the long version, here is the short one.

Ohio has discontiguous townships (unincorporated areas) as a result of annexations by cities removing territory from the townships, or other cities annexing territory. Some cities, Columbus, Dublin, Westerville are independent of any township, and when they annex the territory it is removed from the township. Other cities such as Worthington and Grove City do not remove territory from township, but may remove it from the political authority of the township. In Franklin County many townships have become quite fragmented.

This is an election precinct in Perry Township. The big block contains Brookside Golf Club, and the adjacent Brookside Estates residential area, which is adjacent to Worthington to the east. Four small exclaves to the southeast are adjacent to Worthington. Eight small exclaves to the norhwest are surrounded by Columbus. They are likely unpopulated or have small handfuls of persions.

DRA uses VTD's which are based on election precincts. In a real exercise, I would either argue that political entities should be treated as if they were self-contiguous, or exclude the areas that are surrounded by Columbus.



This is a map of Columbus (in Franklin County)



This is the map of OH-4.



The district considerably cleans up the city limits.

97% of OH-4 is in Columbus. 91% of Columbus is in OH-4 (Columbus is too large for a district).
94% of the non-Columbus part of the county are in OH-5.

The apparent enclaves have very few persons. They are shown because of (1) deficiencies in DRA, or (2) they would be permitted under a practice of treating political entities as self-contiguous.

[cvparty]

• 1st district has the same boundaries as Single's
• 13 and 14 are drawn such that they're majority-black

1: R+9
2: EVEN
3: R+14
4: R+12
5: D+5
6: R+5
7: D+8
8: D+2
9: D+3
10: R+13
11: R+11
12: D+7
13: D+35
14: D+24

[Strudelcutie4427]

1. R+9 (-1339)
2. R+9 (1454)
3. R+7 (772)
4. R+6 (1397)
5. D+9 (1099)
6. R+4 (865)
7. R+9 (137)
8. R+10 (197)
9. D+8 (-1186)
10. R+10 (1259)
11. R+1 (-1637)
12. D+27 (-542) 49% B, 37% W, 9% H
13. D+10 (-671)
14. D+30 (-1801) 51% B, 43% W

[muon2]

We've probably looked at more MI maps on this board than those of any other state. Many of the muon rules were refined looking at plans for MI. Urban county clusters gained prominence in 2013 as a tool to avoid splits of the Lansing metro counties, which when separated could result in good scores with few chops, but a mess in that area. Later they too were refined with other states.

In 2015 we returned to MI to do a detailed scoring of a number of plans. To fascilitate our exercise then I identified the county connections, UCCs (in pink with minimum cover size), subunits and connections in the big 3 Detroit counties, and subunits within Detroit.

[Img=left]https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/GALLERY/256_31_01_15_11_08_35.png[/img]

Here are the subunits of Detroit that would be used to compute chops and erosity. The neighborhood clusters have been matched to the extent possible to the DRA precincts. Connections are based on the actual neighborhood cluster boundaries.



NC 1: pop 66,076; BVAP 82.6%
NC 2: pop 81,321; BVAP 91.3%
NC 3: pop 79,779; BVAP 88.7%
NC 4: pop 61,346; BVAP 75.5%
NC 5: pop 74,720; BVAP 27.5%, HVAP 48.8%
NC 6: pop 58,410; BVAP 94.8%
NC 7: pop 88,225; BVAP 83.6%
NC 8: pop 72,117; BVAP 88.1%
NC 9: pop 78,604; BVAP 96.0%
NC 10: pop 53,179; BVAP 93.2%

[muon2]

In the aforementioned exercise there were a number of plans that had good scores. Unfortunately plans from Torie and traininthedistance were posted on Photobucket and aren't visible anymore. This was my best plan from that exercise, though the partisan caclulations do not reflect the latest PVI values.

Here's the rescore of muon2 B

Here's my plan to reduce chops in MI without relying on microchops. I used a UCC chop of whole county Livingston and a threshold of 47% BVAP for the Detroit CDs. This allowed the removal of one chop in Oakland and a chop outside of the Detroit UCC.

The Muskegon chop is a macrochop and the townships are used to determine cut links there. The other two outstate chops are small. The chop in Ionia isn't a microchop, but it could be if it were moved to the SW corner of Eaton. However if microchops get no advantage as county or UCC chops then to place it there would be counterproductive, despite a better shape.

The Detroit CDs are 48.3% and 47.5% BVAP for CDs 13 and 14 respectively. It's quite possible that the BCVAP in CD 13 is over 50% since there is a 7.5% HVAP population and a large Arab population which would have high non-citizen rates.

MI muon2 2015B

SKEW 1 (R) (5D, 2d, 2e, 4r, 1R) [3R in muon2 A2]
POLARIZATION 18 [14 in muon2 A2]
INEQUALITY 10 (range), 11 (ave dev) (range 5425, ave dev 1599) [11/13 in muon2 A2]
CHOP 8 raw (UC:9, UP:10, US:11) [9/10/12/13 in muon2 A2]
EROSITY 116 [119 in muon2 A2]

If the lowered BVAP is permissible, this beats muon2 A2 in all categories except polarization which is not used as a primary score.

[muon2]

Though I can't see traininthedistance's maps, I did build a plan that used some of his ideas on to top of one of my plans. I'll use that as my second submission. I'm quite curious how the currecnt audience sees these plans three years later.

After all that technical analysis here's a little amuse-bouche. I took my Detroit UCC splintering muon2 A and gave it a reworking. I decided to see how far I could push down the combined inequality and chop scores and bite the bullet on erosity. I also wanted to keep both 50%+ BVAP districts. I used train's pack of GR to eliminate any penalty there but I left in place the excess cover and one excess pack in Detroit at a cost of 3 points there. Here's what came out.

MI muon2 2015C



SKEW 2 (R) (3D, 2d, 5e, 3r, 1R)
POLARIZATION 13
INEQUALITY 7 (ave dev 788, range 4217)
CHOP 12 (9 raw, 2 cover, 1 pack)
EROSITY 135

There are a number of interesting features here from a public policy perspective.
1. CDs 2 and 3 could have been maintained as whole counties with a pack penalty traded for the chop count. A whole county version would have reduced erosity, but average deviation was lower the way it's shown here.
2. The chop in Washtenaw is just enough to keep Milan in one CD. In the OH competition that would have been rewarded with no chop counted in that county.
3. The number of highly competitive districts (PVI=0 or 1) is up to 5 and the polarization is down to 13. In AZ increasing the number of competitive districts is a specific goal, though here it is only a consideration after the main scoring.
4. The shape of CD 14 is particularly erose, but linking the Grosse Pointes to Grosse Ile is a riverfront district and could be construed as a community of interest. There were districts in CA that seemed to use this type of logic.

[cvparty]

Wisconsin is a tricky state to draw because Democrats are packed in Madison and Milwaukee. I'm really interested in how people approach the Milwaukee area districts

[Gass3268]

If it pleases the committee I would like to include my map:





WI-##: Region / Three Largest Cities / Color / Incumbent (Party) / Population Deviation / VAP White / VAP Black / VAP Hispanic / VAP Asian / VAP Native American / VAP Other / PVI (2016 & 2012)

WI-01: Southeast Wisconsin / Kenosha – Racine – Janesville / Blue / Paul Ryan (R) / -2,532 / 84.2% / 5.5% / 7.6% / 1.5% / 0.3% / 0.9% / R+1

WI-02: South Central Wisconsin / Madison – Sun Prairie – Fitchburg / Green / Mark Pocan (D) / +38 / 88.1% / 3.2% / 4.0% / 3.3% / 0.4% / 1.0% / D+17

WI-03: Western Wisconsin / Eau Claire – La Crosse – Onalaska / Ron Kind (D) / -533 / 95% / 0.9% / 1.6% / 1.5% / 0.5% / 1.6% / R+2

WI-04: Milwaukee County / Milwaukee – South Milwaukee – Cudahy / Gwen Moore (D) / +1,647 / 51.5% / 30.4% / 12.9% / 3.2% / 0.6% / 1.5% / D+25

WI-05: Western Milwaukee Metro / Waukesha – West Allis – Wauwatosa / Jim Sensenbrenner (R) / +2,730 / 91.5% / 1.6% / 3.9% / 2% / 0.3% / 0.7% / R+12

WI-06: Northern Lake Michigan Shoreline / Green Bay – Sheboygan – Manitowoc / Mike Gallagher (R) & Glen Grothman (R) / +632 / 91.7% / 1.2% / 3.4% / 2% / 1% / 0.7% / R+10

WI-07: Northern Wisconsin / Wausau – Superior – Stevens Point / Sean Duffy (R) / -1,497 / 94.4% / 0.4% / 1.3% / 1.4% / 1.7% / 0.8% / R+6

WI-08: Lake Winnebago / Appleton – Oshkosh – Fond du Lac / Vacant / -483 / 92.8% / 1% / 2.6 % / 1.4% / 1.5% / 0.7% / R+8

This map only splits one county (Milwaukee twice) and it keeps together all of the Metro areas except Milwaukee Metro and Oconto County from the Green Bay Metro.

[Strudelcutie4427]

1. R+3 (Southeast) -868
2. D+18 (Madison) +1261
3. EVEN (Southwest) +199
4. D+25 (Milwaukee) -761
5. R+17 (WOW Counties) +737
6. R+8 (East Central) +615
7. R+6 (Northeast) -1115
8. R+7 (Northwest) -66

[muon2]

Oconto may be in the Census MSA with Green Bay, but its urban population is small and it doesn't qualify as part of a UCC. There are three UCCs in WI: Milwaukee (Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington, Ozaukee); Appleton (Outagamie, Calumet); Eau Claire (Eau Claire, Chippewa). The Milwaukee UCC can have 2 CDs packed within and a bit left over for a third. Munis matter in WI, so add a detail map for the Milwaukee area with city and town lines turned on to see if any munis are being chopped.

Also, here's a map of inter-county connections if you are trying to minimize erosity.

[Torie]

If one desires commentary on these maps, it would help if for each state, they were all collected in one place in a series of posts, or one post. As it is, I find the process so chaotic, that I kind of backed away from it all.

As a general rule, I give a lot of weight to the pack and cover rules, and dislike maps that chop up metro areas with abandon. I saw some maps of Ohio that chopped the Columbus metro area to bits.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I have a Wisconsin map I will be putting here soon.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

[muon2]

Here's my plan A. Back in 2012 I posted this map as a way to make compact districts out of whole counties (except for Milwaukee). The only chop is for Milwaukee, and there is a chop of the city of Milwaukee cutting off the sw peninsula. We didn't have UCCs in 2012, but this plan does comply with the UCC rules for Milwaukee since 2 CDs are nested entirely within the 4 county region and only one other CD covers the remaining county. However, the plan does chop the Appleton UCC into two parts following the county line.



CD 1: (-2794) R+1.0
CD 2: (+38) D+17
CD 3: (-533) R+1.9
CD 4: (+1374) D+22
CD 5: (+901) R+10
CD 6: (+1829) R+11
CD 7: (-671) R+5.8
CD 8: (-142) R+6.8

[cvparty]

1: D+5
2: D+18
3: D+1
4: D+14
5: R+17
6: R+8
7: R+7
8: R+7
Kenosha and Racine Counties are split because the western parts have a lot more in common with CD-5 than their eastern, urban counterparts (Kenosha and Racine cities)

[muon2]

Here's my plan B. It maintains all the UCCs within the minimum number of districts. The only chop is in Milwaukee and se part of the state is identical to plan A. The erosity is a bit better that A, but ithas somewhat more inequality.



CD 1: (-2794) R+1.0
CD 2: (+2414) D+17
CD 3: (-1788) R+3.8
CD 4: (+1374) D+22
CD 5: (+901) R+10
CD 6: (-2317) R+7.1
CD 7: (+1252) R+5.1
CD 8: (+960) R+10

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Curious Question Muon2, is it possible to have only a single County split, while also having a District entirely within Milwaukee County?

[Torie]

Curious Question Muon2, is it possible to have only a single County split, while also having a District entirely within Milwaukee County?

Probably not, since his one chop is butt ugly,  so if he could arrange the other counties is such a way that that the chop into Milwaukee county was far smaller, but that population shift would not cause a chop elsewhere (the odds of that sized number of folks being moved around, to accomplish a specific goal and not causing a chop elsewhere are low in any event), he would have done so.

[Sol]

FYI the Oneida reservation is in both Brown and Outgamie counties.

[muon2]

Curious Question Muon2, is it possible to have only a single County split, while also having a District entirely within Milwaukee County?

Probably not, since his one chop is butt ugly,  so if he could arrange the other counties is such a way that that the chop into Milwaukee county was far smaller, but that population shift would not cause a chop elsewhere (the odds of that sized number of folks being moved around, to accomplish a specific goal and not causing a chop elsewhere are low in any event), he would have done so.

It is possible with a chop of the city of Milwaukee creating a bridge between Waukesha and Ozaukee (now that bridge chops are legal in the rules with possible erosity penalties). I thought that was worse than chopping the part of the city that sticks out to the sw. It's also possible if one gives up the pack or cover rules for the Milwaukee UCC, or if point contiguity is permitted.

If I wanted really ugly, I could make the bridge chop include all of the black neighborhoods of Milwaukee. Even though the CD would have all of Waukesha and Ozaukee the PVI would only be R+0.9. The other CD would be entirely within Milwaukee county and have a PVI of D+10.

[cvparty]

WI-##: Region / Three Largest Cities / Color / Incumbent (Party) / Population Deviation / VAP White / VAP Black / VAP Hispanic / VAP Asian / VAP Native American / VAP Other / PVI (2016 & 2012)

WI-01: Southeast Wisconsin / Kenosha – Racine – Janesville / Blue / Paul Ryan (R) / -2,532 / 84.2% / 5.5% / 7.6% / 1.5% / 0.3% / 0.9% / R+1

WI-02: South Central Wisconsin / Madison – Sun Prairie – Fitchburg / Green / Mark Pocan (D) / +38 / 88.1% / 3.2% / 4.0% / 3.3% / 0.4% / 1.0% / D+17

WI-03: Western Wisconsin / Eau Claire – La Crosse – Onalaska / Ron Kind (D) / -533 / 95% / 0.9% / 1.6% / 1.5% / 0.5% / 1.6% / R+2

WI-04: Milwaukee County / Milwaukee – South Milwaukee – Cudahy / Gwen Moore (D) / +1,647 / 51.5% / 30.4% / 12.9% / 3.2% / 0.6% / 1.5% / D+25

WI-05: Western Milwaukee Metro / Waukesha – West Allis – Wauwatosa / Jim Sensenbrenner (R) / +2,730 / 91.5% / 1.6% / 3.9% / 2% / 0.3% / 0.7% / R+12

WI-06: Northern Lake Michigan Shoreline / Green Bay – Sheboygan – Manitowoc / Mike Gallagher (R) & Glen Grothman (R) / +632 / 91.7% / 1.2% / 3.4% / 2% / 1% / 0.7% / R+10

WI-07: Northern Wisconsin / Wausau – Superior – Stevens Point / Sean Duffy (R) / -1,497 / 94.4% / 0.4% / 1.3% / 1.4% / 1.7% / 0.8% / R+6

WI-08: Lake Winnebago / Appleton – Oshkosh – Fond du Lac / Vacant / -483 / 92.8% / 1% / 2.6 % / 1.4% / 1.5% / 0.7% / R+8

1. R+3 (Southeast) -868
2. D+18 (Madison) +1261
3. EVEN (Southwest) +199
4. D+25 (Milwaukee) -761
5. R+17 (WOW Counties) +737
6. R+8 (East Central) +615
7. R+6 (Northeast) -1115
8. R+7 (Northwest) -66

Here's my plan A.


CD 1: (-2794) R+1.0
CD 2: (+38) D+17
CD 3: (-533) R+1.9
CD 4: (+1374) D+22
CD 5: (+901) R+10
CD 6: (+1829) R+11
CD 7: (-671) R+5.8
CD 8: (-142) R+6.8

Here's my plan B.


CD 1: (-2794) R+1.0
CD 2: (+2414) D+17
CD 3: (-1788) R+3.8
CD 4: (+1374) D+22
CD 5: (+901) R+10
CD 6: (-2317) R+7.1
CD 7: (+1252) R+5.1
CD 8: (+960) R+10

1: D+5
2: D+18
3: D+1
4: D+14
5: R+17
6: R+8
7: R+7
8: R+7
Kenosha and Racine Counties are split because the western parts have a lot more in common with CD-5 than their eastern, urban counterparts (Kenosha and Racine cities)

[cvparty]

1: R+4
2: R+2
3: D+1
4: D+12
5: D+26
6: R+13
7: R+14
8: R+3

[muon2]

Please turn on city/town lines when making a zoom map of the Twin Cities. As someone who grew up there, I can tell you that they matter locally. They also matter if I try to score the submissions.


MN has 3 UCCs to track. The Minneapolis UCC (Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, Anoka, Scott, Wright, Carver, Sherbune) has about 4.6 CDs of population. That means the ideal plan from a UCC perspective only covers those counties with 5 CDs while putting 4 completely within that part of the metro. The other two UCCs are much smaller: St Cloud (Stearns, Benton) and Mankato (Blue Earth, Nicollet), and ideal those pairs should not be split.