Cube Root Rule Legislative Districts

[Hash]

The Italian electoral system is terrible.

Yes. Majority bonuses are a perversion of proportional representation. Either you use real PR or you use FPTP or whatever.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The Italian electoral system is terrible.

Yes. Majority bonuses are a perversion of proportional representation. Either you use real PR or you use FPTP or whatever.

No, because proportional representation with majority prizes are aimed to provide clear majorities to a coalition whil not perverting the whole citizens' representation as FPTP does. FTPT is the dumbest electoral system, provides Assembly who aren't even closely representative of the share of the votes. Majority prizes allow to conciliate the need of governability with the exigence of democratic representation.

[Hash]

The Italian electoral system is terrible.

Yes. Majority bonuses are a perversion of proportional representation. Either you use real PR or you use FPTP or whatever.

No, because proportional representation with majority prizes are aimed to provide clear majorities to a coalition whil not perverting the whole citizens' representation as FPTP does. FTPT is the dumbest electoral system, provides Assembly who aren't even closely representative of the share of the votes. Majority prizes allow to conciliate the need of governability with the exigence of democratic representation.

How is it fair and real proportionality that a party with a plurality, say 30% of the votes, gets 50 flipping percent? That's as bad as FPTP.

How is it fair and real proportionality that a party which has won an election with 30% of vote (and the other party wins 29.5%) gets a majority? FPTP is calling, they want their crap back.

Either you do PR or you don't do it (or at least you don't have the balls to blatantly lie and call it PR).

[Antonio the Sixth]

The Italian electoral system is terrible.

Yes. Majority bonuses are a perversion of proportional representation. Either you use real PR or you use FPTP or whatever.

No, because proportional representation with majority prizes are aimed to provide clear majorities to a coalition whil not perverting the whole citizens' representation as FPTP does. FTPT is the dumbest electoral system, provides Assembly who aren't even closely representative of the share of the votes. Majority prizes allow to conciliate the need of governability with the exigence of democratic representation.

How is it fair and real proportionality that a party with a plurality, say 30% of the votes, gets 50 flipping percent? That's as bad as FPTP.

How is it fair and real proportionality that a party which has won an election with 30% of vote (and the other party wins 29.5%) gets a majority? FPTP is calling, they want their crap back.

Either you do PR or you don't do it (or at least you don't have the balls to blatantly lie and call it PR).

Here is an unexhaustive list of the drawbacks of FPP which you don't mind with Majority prize-PR :
- The order of parties can be totally changed due to random factors. To put it clearly, luck matters as much as numbers of votes for the final representation. With majority prizes, only the election results influentiate the repartition.
- FPP renders gerrymandering possible.
- Regions with high abstention, or with a lot of people too young to vote, are favored since the drawing of constituencies depends to the population and not the number of votes.
- A party can gte a majority of votes and a minority of seats. There are numerous examples in the history.
- With an equal number of votes, egional parties are favored, because their votes are concentrated in a small number of constituencies. That's why BQ always get more votes than NPD.
- There is no guarantee that FPP will generate solid majorities in the final representation. Se for example the Assemblies of third republics.

To sum up : FPP sucks, is totally stupid and has absolutely no advantage. Then, if you want to choose the voting system, it all depends to you priorities : If you think that having strong majorities is important, choose majority prize, if you think the electorate should be perfectly represented, use traditional PR. FPP isn't a good option in either case.

[Хahar 🤔]

- A party can gte a majority of votes and a minority of seats. There are numerous examples in the history.

This always happens under the Italian system. It happens every single time.

[Antonio the Sixth]

- A party can gte a majority of votes and a minority of seats. There are numerous examples in the history.

This always happens under the Italian system. It happens every single time.

By "minority" I meant the party isn't ahead in terms of number of votes.

[jimrtex]

Write out the other NYC districts plz. And give em some better names. Come on. District 37 is simply "Harlem".

Staten Island and Brooklyn have been added.

The problem is that you chose an extreme example.  In many cases it is not obvious which neighborhoods should be recognized.  If you provide names for all the NYC districts, I'll switch them.  I think I would still include the borough name, so it would be "Manhattan Harlem".

[jimrtex]

Nothing New Under The Sun

The Ohio Constitution of 1851 (which is the base for the current constitution) has a provision for apportioning fractional representatives to counties.  Counties entitled to more than one representative could have additional representation for each 1/5 of a quota, which would result in the additional member being elected to between 1 and 4 sessions of a decade,

The constitution was amended in 1903, supposedly at the behest of Mark Hanna, to guarantee each county one representation - but not to remove the fractional representation.  I can't find any evidence of any change until 1960's when the apportionment scheme was challenged in court.  But this appears to have been based on one man, one vote rulings based on the guarantee of one representative per county, and the at-large election of representatives (one plaintiff was the Cincinnati NAACP, and Hamilton County would have had around 10 representatives at the time).  The entire apportionment article was replaced in 1967.

The schedule of representation in the 1851 Constitution is still part of the Constitution.  At the time the quota would have been 19,803.  

There were 35 counties with between 0.5 and 1.2 quotas who had one representative for the entire period.  It is not clear how rounding was done.  Clark would have been entitled to 1.120 representatives and got 1, but Mahoning was entitled to 1.198 and had one representative for each session, plus one for the fifth.  So it appears that something like D'Hondt was used.  They may have had different numbers than modern census figures, or perhaps they fudged.  Seneca was entitled to 1.369 and got 1.2 members, while Brown was entitled to 1.380 but got 1.4.

There were 11 counties with 1.2 representatives; and 13 with 1.4; 4 with 1.6; and 4 with 2.0.  Muskingum had 2.0, Cuyahoga 2.4; and Hamilton 7.8.

There were 7 multi-county districts, mainly in the northwest.  There were 3 counties that could have had a district on its own merits (only 50% was needed), but it appears that they had a smaller neighbor or two attached.

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[muon2]

Nothing New Under The Sun

The Ohio Constitution of 1851 (which is the base for the current constitution) has a provision for apportioning fractional representatives to counties.  Counties entitled to more than one representative could have additional representation for each 1/5 of a quota, which would result in the additional member being elected to between 1 and 4 sessions of a decade,

The constitution was amended in 1903, supposedly at the behest of Mark Hanna, to guarantee each county one representation - but not to remove the fractional representation.  I can't find any evidence of any change until 1960's when the apportionment scheme was challenged in court.  But this appears to have been based on one man, one vote rulings based on the guarantee of one representative per county, and the at-large election of representatives (one plaintiff was the Cincinnati NAACP, and Hamilton County would have had around 10 representatives at the time).  The entire apportionment article was replaced in 1967.

The schedule of representation in the 1851 Constitution is still part of the Constitution.  At the time the quota would have been 19,803.  

There were 35 counties with between 0.5 and 1.2 quotas who had one representative for the entire period.  It is not clear how rounding was done.  Clark would have been entitled to 1.120 representatives and got 1, but Mahoning was entitled to 1.198 and had one representative for each session, plus one for the fifth.  So it appears that something like D'Hondt was used.  They may have had different numbers than modern census figures, or perhaps they fudged.  Seneca was entitled to 1.369 and got 1.2 members, while Brown was entitled to 1.380 but got 1.4.

There were 11 counties with 1.2 representatives; and 13 with 1.4; 4 with 1.6; and 4 with 2.0.  Muskingum had 2.0, Cuyahoga 2.4; and Hamilton 7.8.

There were 7 multi-county districts, mainly in the northwest.  There were 3 counties that could have had a district on its own merits (only 50% was needed), but it appears that they had a smaller neighbor or two attached.

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Even though OH no longer conducts an apportionment between the counties in the truest sense of their original constitution, the state still refers to the redistricting body as the apportionment board.

[jimrtex]

Even though OH no longer conducts an apportionment between the counties in the truest sense of their original constitution, the state still refers to the redistricting body as the apportionment board.

I think that "reapportionment" is the more usual term across the country.

I found a roster of the legislature up through the early 1900's and it appears that they did maintain the system.  As time went on, more counties were dropping below 1/100th of the population, and were still getting 1 full member.  There were perhaps 9 counties that had dropped below 0.5.  The amendment in the early 1900s guaranteeing each county a representative would have tended to keep increasing the size of the House.

The system was also used for the Senate.  The 1851 Constitution defined 33 Senate districts.  Hamilton (Cincinnati) was the only district with multiple senators.  Cuyahoga (Cleveland) was a single district, but some other counties which would become major counties such as Franklin (Columbus) and Montgomery (Dayton) had smaller counties attached.

Noble County (in SE Ohio) is the last county added in Ohio, in the decade after the 1851 Constitution (from four counties).  It happened that a senate district ran through the area that became Noble County.  So forever after, Noble County remained split between Senate Districts.

When the smaller districts dropped below 1/33 they were merged with another district, and they retained the old district numbers.   So you might have a District 17-28, (a merger of 17 and 28).  At least initially it would have more a Senator plus a fraction.

It would really be interesting to know whether the fractional representation was ever considered when the 1960 reapportionment cases.  The malapportionment because of the guarantee of the one representative per county amendment would have been an issue, as well as the at-large election of representatives in the big counties like Hamilton and Cuyahoga.  And perhaps the fractional representation would have made it difficult to have single member districts, though perhaps an at-large overlay would have been acceptable.  So if Hamilton had 10.6 representatives, it would have 10 districts, and elect an 11th representative for 3 sessions.

I thought my idea of fractional representation was so bizarre it would never be acceptable, and then to find it had already been used for a century was pretty amazing.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Bump
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=146773.msg3149475#msg3149475
This is actually VERY close to something I came up with way back when, when I attempted to find some sort of math that could be used for the smallest countries and the largest.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

China would end up with 1102 MPs while Pitcarin Islands would have 4, which tells me that this is a very solid system. The world itself would have about 19K members.

Canada = 324
  PEI = 52 (a bit much)
  Yukon = 31 (again, a bit much)
  Quebec = 200 (again, maybe this works better for countries, than provinces of states)
Germany = 434
Russia = 521
Brazil = 579

I think this works much better for provinces and states if you only take two thirds of the result. IE PEI would be 35 (close to what they have/had in real life), Yukon at 20 (again, close), Quebec at 133 (again)


Also note, this means more REPRESENTATIVES. Not more crook politicians. If you don't want crook politicians, STOP VOTING FOR THEM.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Presuming HALF the result for subnational entities



 California   168
 Texas   148
 New York   135
 Florida   134
 Illinois   117
 Pennsylvania   117
 Ohio   113
 Michigan   107
 Georgia   107
 North Carolina   106
 New Jersey   103
 Virginia   100
 Washington   95
 Massachusetts   94
 Indiana   93
 Arizona   93
 Tennessee   93
 Missouri   91
 Maryland   90
 Wisconsin   89
 Minnesota   87
 Colorado   86
 Alabama   84
 South Carolina   84
 Louisiana   83
 Kentucky   82
 Oregon   79
 Oklahoma   78
 Puerto Rico   77
 Connecticut   76
 Iowa   73
 Mississippi   72
 Arkansas   72
 Kansas   71
 Utah   71
 Nevada   70
 New Mexico   64
 West Virginia   61
 Nebraska   61
 Idaho   58
 Hawaii   56
 Maine   55
 New Hampshire   55
 Rhode Island   51
 Montana   50
 Delaware   48
 South Dakota   47
 Alaska   45
 North Dakota   44
 Vermont   43
 Washington, DC   43
 Wyoming   41
 Guam   27
 U.S. Virgin Islands   24
 American Samoa   19
 Northern Mariana Islands   19
   
Ontario   119
Quebec   100
British Columbia   83
Alberta   78
Manitoba   54
Saskatchewan   51
Nova Scotia   49
New Brunswick   46
Newfoundland and Labrador   40
Prince Edward Island   26
Northwest Territories   18
Yukon Territory   16
Nunavut   16
   
England   186
Scotland   87
Wales   72
Northern Ireland   61

[bgwah]

I've played around with this before with Washington's legislature. If you use the fourth root for our 2000 population (5,894,121), you get 49 seats... Which is exactly how many legislative seats we actually have! Applying it to our 2010 population (6,724,540) yields 51 seats! If only it actually worked this way. Might have made redistricting easier in the fastest growing areas---Clark County's legislative districts, for example, are very messy.

The cube root rule would give us 189 seats. If we had a unicameral legislature that would be a pretty good number.

[jimrtex]

These are the updated maps for Maine, where the size of the legislature increased from 108 to 110 members.  The increased occurred almost entirely in Cumberland, Penobscot, and York counties.





Each representative represents 12,076 persons, elected from multi-member districts.  For each additional 1/5 of a representative (2,415 persons), the district elects an additional member for one of the 5 2-years terms in the decade. That is, a district entitled to 3.4 representatives would choose 3 representatives every election, and a 4^th representative for two terms.

In a district is entitled to 2 extra terms, the two bonus terms are chosen so that they are not consecutive, nor that all 3 ordinary terms are consecutive.  A similar rule is used for districts entitled to 3 extra terms.

The extra terms are arranged, so that, in general, neighboring districts will have the extra representative in different terms.  For example, Bangor & Brewer is entitled to 3.6 representatives, while Penobscot South is entitled to 4.4 representatives.  Collectively, the two districts will elect 8 representatives for all 5 terms in the decade.   In three terms, the 8^th representative will come from Bangor & Brewer, and in the other 2 terms, the extra representatives will be from Penobscot South.

Of the 110 representatives, 100 will be elected from the same districts in every election, but 7 of the remaining 10 will be elected from the same county at each election: York(2), Cumberland(2), Androscoggin plus Kennebec West (1), Kennebec (1), and Penobscot (1).  Two other representatives will be elected from Oxford and Somerset counties, 4 out of 5 terms, so the overall regional balance will vary only slightly.

Districts were designed to elect between 3 and 5* members from districts made up of one or more towns.  In addition, an attempt was made to create districts entirely within counties.  Given the relative insignificance of counties in Maine (elections are conducted by the towns), there is no strong reason on this restriction, but it did simplify my efforts.  In a real life implementation, voters in each town might be given the option to switch their town to a different district.  A town with about 5000 persons (the equivalent of 0.4 representatives) would simply take that representation with them.

*Towns and counties entitled to be between 5 and 6 representatives may be placed in a single district.  Such an area could not be divided between two districts, but rather would have to be split, with one of the parts being combined with other cities or towns.  Keeping these exceptional towns in a single district, with a slightly large representation is preferable.

The districts shown above were based on districts that I had drawn based on the 2000 census.  After updating the populations to the 2010 census, adjustments were made to districts that were now outside the range of 3 to 6 representatives.  A feature of this system is that changes in districts will be fairly limited.  In this case only 3 changes were made in district boundaries (23 of 29 districts are unchanged).

5 counties in Maine have a population less than that needed for 3 representative: Franklin (2.55), Lincoln (2.85), Piscataquis (1.45), Sagadahoc (2.92), and Washington (2.72).  In 4 cases, towns from an adjacent county were added to the district for the smaller county.  Sagadahoc was kept as a single-county district because the neighboring counties were quite populous (Cumberland, Androscoggin, and Kennebec) or even smaller (Lincoln), and Sagadahoc has only slightly less than the population needed for 3 representatives.

Sagadahoc, Lincoln, and Knox collectively have barely enough population for 9 representatives, so a longer term solution might be to create two districts with Lincoln being divided.

The two Aroostook districts each have a population equivalent to slightly less than 3 representatives (2.96 and 2.99 for North and South respectively), so they could be combined in a single district electing 6 representatives.  The current population requires a very precise split in population, with the boundary drawn between Caribou and Presque Isle, the two most populous towns in the county.  While a north-south split division may be natural between Madawaska and Houlton, it is less so for these areas.

Piscataquis & Penobscot West and Franklin & Somerset West both remain above 3.00 representatives and thus do not need further shifting of towns from Penobscot or Somerset counties.

The same was not true for Washington, and it was necessary to move Sorrento and Sullivan towns to the district, to join Gouldsboro and Winter Harbor, the two Hancock County towns that were already part of the district.  If this process continues, a change in the name of the district (eg Washington & Hancock East) may be in order.

Similarly, Washington town was added to Lincoln, to join Friendship town in that district.

In Cumberland County, suburban growth put Cumberland Central past 5.00, and Gorham town was moved to Cumberland North, which in turn forced New Gloucester town to be moved to Cumberland East.  Cumberland County has a population equivalent to 23.33 representatives.  With continued growth, 5 districts becomes an increasingly stretched fit, even with Portland having more than 5 representatives.  A 6th district may be necessary to accommodate continued growth.


   District                                         2010 2000 12 14 16 18 20
 1.Aroostook North                                   3.0  3.2  3  3  3  3  3
 2.Aroostook South                                   3.0  3.0  3  3  3  3  3

 3.Penobscot East and North                          3.2  3.2  3  4  3  3  3
 4.Bangor & Brewer                                   3.6  3.6  4  3  4  4  3
 5.Penobscot South                                   4.4  4.0  4  5  4  4  5
 6.Piscataquis & Penobscot West                      3.0  3.0  3  3  3  3  3

 7.Somerset                                          3.8  3.8  4  4  4  3  4
 8.Franklin & Somerset West                          3.0  3.0  3  3  3  3  3
 9.Oxford                                            4.8  4.6  4  5  5  5  5

10.Washington                                        3.0  3.2  3  3  3  3  3
11.Hancock                                           4.2  4.2  4  4  4  5  4
12.Waldo                                             3.2  3.0  4  3  3  3  3

13.Kennebec North (Waterville)                       3.4  3.4  3  4  3  4  3
14.Kennebec South (Augusta)                          3.6  3.6  4  3  4  3  4
15.Kennebec West                                     3.2  3.0  3  4  3  3  3

16.Lewiston and Androscoggin East                    4.4  4.4  5  4  4  5  4
17.Androscoggin West & North (Auburn)                4.4  4.4  4  4  5  4  5

18.Knox                                              3.0  3.2  3  3  3  3  3
19.Lincoln                                           3.0  3.0  3  3  3  3  3
20.Sagadahoc                                         3.0  3.0  3  3  3  3  3

21.Cumberland North (Gorham)                         4.8  3.6  5  5  5  5  4
22.Cumberland East (Brunswick)                       5.0  4.6  5  5  5  5  5
23.Cumberland Central (Westbrook, Windham)           3.8  4.6  4  3  4  4  4
24.Portland                                          5.6  5.4  5  6  5  6  6
25.Cumberland South (South Portland, Scarborough)    4.4  4.2  5  4  5  4  4

26.York North                                        3.8  3.4  4  4  4  3  4
27.York East (Biddeford, Saco)                       4.6  4.6  4  5  4  5  5
28.York West (Sanford)                               3.8  3.6  3  3  3  3  3
29.York South (York)                                 4.0  4.2  5  4  5  5  5

[jimrtex]

New Hampshire has 110, representatives the same as Maine (there is less than 1% difference in population between the two states).  This is an increase of 3 from the current 107 representatives.

Most of the growth is concentrated in the southeastern part of the state, with hardly any growth in the Connecticut valley.  In the southeast, there is general dispersion, with every district in Hillsborough and Rockingham gaining population, except those containing  Manchester, Nashua, Derry, and Portsmouth.





Coos is the only county with a population equivalent to less than 3 representatives, and it was necessary to add two more towns from Carroll (Hart's Location and Bartlett) to its district.  The next town is Conway which is the largest town in Carroll County, so it may be necessary to also expand into Grafton County, and perhaps make Carroll County a whole district.

Strafford County now has a population greater than 10 representatives, and so the current division into 2 districts must be replaced with a 3 district configuration.  But there is no way to do this without splitting towns.  So instead, a new district straddling the Strafford-Belknap line was created and the names of all 4 districts changed to reflect the modification:

5.  Belknap becomes Belknap West
28. the new district of Belknap East & Strafford North
10. Strafford West becomes Strafford Central
11. Strafford East becomes Strafford South

A better solution might be to permit areas with a population with between 9 and 11 representatives to maintained in two districts, with one having between 5 and 6 seats.  As an area approached 10 seats, this would permit a more relaxed approach instead of a strict 5.0-5.0 split; and also avoiding the situations where 3 districts must have very close to the same population.

The split of Nashua was modified to reflect new ward boundaries and to better balance population.  US 3 is used for ward boundaries and also for the dividing line between the two districts.  The current alignment of the highway was a bypass to the west of the original core area of the city, but now roughly splits the population in two parts.  Thus Nashua West is more suburban than Nashua East.  Ward 2, the northernmost ward, straddles the highway and was assigned to Nashua East to better balance the population.

99 of the 110 seats are assigned to districts for all 5 terms.  The other 11 float among the districts, with 10 generally maintaining the same representation between counties: Grafton-Carroll (2), Sullivan-Cheshire (1), Belknap-Strafford (1), Merrimack (1), Hillsborough (4), and Rockingham (1).  The final seat floats between Rockingham West and Merrimack, Strafford, and Belknap counties.


 District                                 2010 2000 12 14 16 18 20
 1.Coos                                    3.0  3.0  3  3  3  3  3
 2.Carroll                                 3.6  3.6  4  3  4  3  4
 3.Grafton East                            3.6  3.4  3  4  3  4  4
 4.Grafton West                            3.8  3.8  4  4  4  4  3

 5.Belknap West                            3.2  4.8  3  4  3  3  3
28.Belknap East & Strafford North          3.4  0.0  4  3  3  4  3
10.Strafford Central                       4.2  5.0  4  4  5  4  4
11.Strafford South                         4.4  4.8  4  5  4  4  5

 6.Sullivan                                3.6  3.4  3  4  3  4  4
12.Cheshire North                          3.4  3.4  4  3  4  3  3
13.Cheshire South                          3.0  3.0  3  3  3  3  3

 7.Merrimack West                          4.4  4.2  5  4  4  5  4
 8.Concord & Loudon                        4.0  3.8  4  4  4  4  4
 9.Merrimack East                          3.8  3.8  3  4  4  4  4

14.Hillsborough West                       4.6  4.2  5  4  5  4  5
15.Hillsborough North                      4.4  4.0  4  5  4  5  4
16.Hillsborough South                      4.4  4.2  4  4  5  4  5
17.Hillsborough East                       3.8  3.6  4  4  3  4  4

18.Manchester Central                      4.6  4.6  4  4  4  4  4
19.Manchester South & West                 4.6  4.8  4  5  5  4  5
20.Nashua East                             4.0  3.6  5  5  4  5  4
21.Nashua West                             3.4  4.0  4  3  3  4  3

22.Rockingham West                         3.6  3.4  4  3  4  3  4
23.Derry & Londonderry                     4.8  5.0  5  5  5  5  4
24.Rockingham Southwest                    4.2  3.8  4  4  5  4  4
25.Rockingham South                        4.0  3.8  4  4  4  4  4
26.Rockingham North                        4.0  3.6  4  4  4  4  4
27.Rockingham East                         4.2  4.4  4  4  4  4  5

[jimrtex]

Vermont has 86 representatives, an increase of one.  The increase was highly concentrated in Chittenden County (Burlington) with small gains spread throughout the northern part of the state.  There was a significant decrease in Rutland County, with the city of Rutland having a 4.7% decline in population during the decade.   I didn't find a source for the decline, other than there marble quarries closed in the 1980s and 1990s.  Perhaps there was continued die-off of retirees, while those of employment age had already moved out.  The major employer is a GE plant (parts for jet engines) but I didn't find any indication of a shifting of work.



No changes were made in districts.  Windham South has population slightly less than needed for 3.0 representatives, but only switching Dover town would keep both Windham districts over 3.0.  Requiring districts to have over 3.00 has a slight bias against small districts, since they will then round down to 3.00.  So it seems reasonable to permit continuing districts to decline to 2.90 before modifying them.  In the case of Windham County, the next change may be to combine the two districts into one.

Burlington is almost to 6.0 representatives and may be split in 2020.

79 of the 86 representatives are elected from the same districts for all 5 terms, with 7 floating: Chittendon, Franklin, Grande Isle (3), Orleans, Essex, Lamoille (1), Washington (1), and Windsor, Windham (1).  The final representative floats around the state: Caledonia (1 term), Washington (1), Rutland (2), and Bennington (1).


 District                                 2010 2000 12 14 16 18 20
 1.Orleans & Essex                         4.6  4.6  4  5  5  4  5
 9.Lamoille                                3.4  3.2  4  3  3  4  3
10.Caledonia                               4.2  4.2  4  4  4  5  4

 2.Franklin East                           4.0  3.8  4  4  4  4  4
 3.Franklin West & Grand Isle              3.6  3.6  3  4  3  4  4

 4.Chittenden North                        4.8  4.6  5  5  5  4  5
 5.Burlington                              5.8  5.4  6  5  6  6  6
 6.Chittenden South                        4.0  3.6  4  4  4  4  4
 7.Chittenden Central                      3.8  3.6  4  4  4  4  3
 8.Chittenden East                         3.0  3.0  3  3  3  3  3

11.Washington Outer                        3.8  3.6  4  4  4  4  3
12.Barre & Montpelier                      4.4  4.4  4  5  4  4  5

14.Orange                                  4.0  4.0  4  4  4  4  4
15.Windsor North                           4.2  4.4  4  4  4  5  4
16.Windsor South                           3.6  3.6  3  4  4  3  4
20.Windham North                           3.2  3.2  4  3  3  3  3
21.Windham South                           3.0  3.0  3  3  3  3  3

13.Addison                                 5.0  5.0  5  5  5  5  5
17.Rutland Northeast                       4.2  4.6  5  4  4  4  4
18.Rutland South & West                    4.2  4.4  4  4  5  4  4
19.Bennington                              5.2  5.2  5  5  5  5  6

[jimrtex]

Massachusetts has 187 representatives, an increase of 2.  Most of the growth was in the exurban area plus central Boston, with some losses in the extremities.

All 5 Worcester County districts gained representation for a total of 1.2 more.  In addition, two Bristol County and two Plymouth County districts also had increases along with District 22 (Lawrence, Metheun, Andover) on the New Hampshire border.

Norfolk and Middlesex had no net change, with the only change a shift of 0.2 from District 16 (Somerville, et al) to District 15 (Malden, et al).

District 28 and 29 in Boston closer to the Charles River had gains, while District 31 (Dorchester and Roxbury) had a loss.

There were also losses in Berkshire, Fall River, and Cape Cod.









No districts needed to be modified as all remained within the 3 to 5-seat range (or in the case of Worcester City, between 3 and 6).  The district consisting of the non-Boston remainder of Suffolk County (Revere, Chelsea, and Winthrop) is right at the minimum.  If it were to drop below 3, it would be reasonable to add East Boston (and perhaps Charlestown), especially if the districts in central Boston continue to grow.

The 3 districts in Plymouth County are approach 5 seats (the total entitlement is 14.13).  It may be necessary in 2020 to realign the districts, or split into 4 districts.

Otherwise, the current map may continue to be maintained until at least the 2030 census.

171 of the 187 seats are fixed for all 5 terms, with 16 floating seats.  It was not possible to confine these to individual counties, but it was possible to have some of the floating seats assigned to districts across county lines.  After assigning terms to the districts, I discovered that the number of representatives elected from Worcester and Middlesex counties varies by 2 over the decade, 22 to 24, and 42 to 44, respectively.  After adjusting the bonus terms for seats that float across county lines, the variation within any county was reduced to one.


  District                                     2010 2000 12 14 16 18 20
 1.Berkshire                                    3.8  4.0  4  4  4  3  4
 2.Franklin & Hampshire East & West             3.2  3.2  3  3  3  4  3
 3.Hampshire Central                            3.4  3.4  4  3  4  3  3

 4.Hampden West                                 4.4  4.4  4  4  5  4  5
 5.Springfield                                  4.4  4.4  5  4  4  5  4
 6.Hampden East                                 4.4  4.4  4  5  4  4  5

 7.Worcester North                              4.6  4.4  4  5  5  4  5
 8.Worcester West                               4.4  4.2  4  5  4  5  4
 9.Worcester City                               5.2  5.0  5  6  5  5  5
10.Worcester East                               4.4  4.2  5  4  4  5  4
11.Worcester South                              4.4  4.0  4  4  5  4  5

12.Middlesex North                              4.2  4.2  4  4  4  5  4
13.Lowell, Dracut, & Tynsborough                4.2  4.2  5  4  4  4  4
14.Middlesex East                               4.4  4.4  4  5  4  5  4
15.Malden, Everett, Melrose, & Wakefield        4.4  4.2  4  4  5  4  5
16.Somerville, Medford, & Stoneham              4.4  4.6  4  5  4  5  4
17.Cambridge, Watertown, & Belmont              4.6  4.6  5  4  5  4  5
18.Middlesex Central                            4.2  4.2  5  4  4  4  4
19.Newton & Waltham                             4.2  4.2  4  4  5  4  4
20.Middlesex West                               4.0  4.0  4  4  4  4  4
21.Middlesex South                              4.2  4.2  4  4  4  4  5
22.Lawrence, Methuen, & Andover                 4.4  4.2  5  4  4  5  4

23.Essex North                                  4.2  4.2  4  4  4  4  5
24.Cape Anne                                    4.2  4.2  4  4  5  4  4
25.Essex West                                   4.2  4.2  4  5  4  4  4
26.Lynn, Saugus, Swampscott, & Nahant           4.2  4.2  5  4  4  4  4

27.Revere, Chelsea, & Winthrop                  3.0  3.0  3  3  3  3  3
28.Boston Central                               4.6  4.2  5  4  5  5  4
29.Boston West                                  4.4  4.2  4  5  4  4  5
30.Boston Southwest                             4.6  4.6  4  5  4  5  5
31.Boston South                                 4.0  4.2  4  4  4  4  4

32.Brookline, Needham, Wellesley, & Dedham      4.0  4.0  4  4  4  4  4
33.Norfolk West                                 3.8  3.8  4  4  4  4  3
34.Norfolk Central                              4.0  4.0  4  4  4  4  4
35.Quincy & Milton                              3.4  3.4  3  3  4  3  4
36.Norfolk East                                 4.0  4.0  4  4  4  4  4

37.Bristol North                                4.0  3.8  4  4  4  4  4
38.Bristol Central                              3.8  3.6  4  4  4  4  3
39.Fall River, Somerset, & Westport             3.4  3.6  3  4  3  3  4
40.New Bedford, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, & Acushnet4.4  4.4  5  4  4  5  4

41.Plymouth North                               4.6  4.4  5  5  4  5  4
42.Plymouth West                                4.8  4.8  4  5  5  5  5
43.Plymouth South                               4.6  4.4  5  4  5  4  5

44.Cape Cod                                     3.8  4.0  4  4  3  4  4
45.Barnstable West, Dukes, & Nantucket          3.2  3.2  3  3  4  3  3

[jimrtex]

Rhode Island has 102 representative, no change.  There was a small shift towards the west, in Providence, Kent, and Washington counties, and losses in older mill towns such as Woonsocket, Pawtucket, and East Providence.  Providence had a small gain.



Growth in Cumberland (Boston exurban) required splitting of Cumberland and Central Falls, which triggered a wholesale change of districts in northern and western Providence County, modifying districts 11, 12, 13. and 15, and adding District 27.  Rhode Island only has 40 towns, and 29 of them have a population equal to one representative or more, so forming districts is sometimes a matter of just getting two or three that fit within the 3 to 5 seat range, rather than finding some deeper community of interest.

Over time, I suspect that there might have needed to be some exceptional districts - districts that split a town entitled to 2 members, or perhaps multi-town districts with more than 5.0 seats.



4 cities in Rhode Island have a population equivalent to more than 6 seats (62,000 plus) and need to divided among two or more districts: Pawtucket, Providence, Cranston, and Warwick.

The 2000 maps were based on VTDs, which Rhode Island did not delineate for 2010.  The 2010 maps are based on census tracts, with some fine tuning using block groups.



The Blackstone River would be the preferred boundary between Pawtucket West and Pawtucket East, but this would leave Pawtucket West short of the necessary population for a district, so the boundary was shifted to include an area east of the river.  Other than breaking a rule about joining whole towns with split towns, adding Central Falls to the western district would also be a possibility.

A historical curiosity is that that Rhode Island-Massachusetts border was not definitively resolved until 1862, when the eastern part of Pawtucket and what is now East Providence was given to Rhode Island, while what was then Fall River, Rhode Island, was given to Fall River, Massachusetts.  Apparently, the delineation was based more on uniting communities than trying to literally interpret royal charters.



Providence is entitled to 17 representatives, an increase of 0.2, and could be divided into 4 or 5 districts.  I maintained the current 5 districts since District 22, Providence East is a fairly distinct area, and dividing the rest of the city into 3 districts would forced them close to 5.0 representatives, and also result in a divvying up of the central portion of the city.



Cranston is divided by the Pocasset River, which divides the gridded streets south from Providence, from the more curvilinear suburban streets to the west.   South Providence was carved out of Cranston and later incorporated into Providence as part of a long ago gerrymander (each town had a senator).    The state prison is located in District 19, Cranston West and contributes about 0.3 representatives to the district.



Warwick is divided roughly by the areas southwest of the Providence airport, dividing the leafier areas to north and east, from the areas more accessible to I-95.  Warwick doesn't have much of a traditional downtown core, since that is in West Warwick which was a mill town, set off from Warwick so that the farmers wouldn't be dominated by the town.  Later Warwick developed as an area of summer homes along Narragansett Bay (for the 99% of the 1% who couldn't afford Newport).  It was hammered by the 1938 New England Hurricane which resulted in a storm surge up Naragansett Bay of up to 15 feet.

92 of the 102 representative are fixed throughout all 5 terms, with 6 of the floating seats in relatively localized areas: Providence (2), Warwick, Johnston & Scituate, Newport County, and Southern Washington County. 

Warwick, Pawtucket, and Bristol County have an extra seat for 4 of the 5 terms, with the seat going to East Providence in the fallow term.  So collectively this area that wraps around Providence to the east shares 3 floating seats.

The final floating seat floats throughout the western part of the state, from Cumberland to Washington County.


  District                                     2010 2000 12 14 16 18 20

 1.Bristol, Barrington & Warren                 4.8  5.0  5  5  5  4  5
 2.Portsmouth, Tiverton, & Little Compton       3.6  3.4  3  4  3  4  4
 3.Newport, Middletown, & Jamestown             4.4  4.8  5  4  5  4  4

 4.South Kingstown, Naragansett, & New Shoreham 4.6  4.4  4  5  4  5  5
 5.Westerly, Hopkinton, Charlestown, & Richmond 4.6  4.4  5  4  5  4  5
 6.North Kingstown & Exeter                     3.2  3.2  3  3  4  3  3

 7.Coventry & West Greenwich                    4.0  3.8  4  4  4  4  4
 8.West Warwick & East Greenwich                4.2  4.2  4  5  4  4  4
 9.Warwick West                                 4.2  4.0  4  4  4  4  5
10.Warwick East                                 3.8  4.4  4  4  4  4  3

11.Johnston & Scituate                          3.8  4.2  4  4  3  4  4
12.Burrillville, Glocester, & Foster            3.0  3.6  3  3  3  3  3
13.Lincoln & Central Falls                      4.0  4.0  4  4  4  4  4
14.Woonsocket                                   4.0  4.2  4  4  4  4  4
15.Cumberland                                   3.2  5.0  3  3  4  3  3
27.Smithfield & North Smithfield                3.2  0.0  4  3  3  3  3

16.North Providence                             3.2  3.2  3  3  3  4  3
17.East Providence                              4.6  4.8  5  5  4  5  4
18.Cranston East                                3.8  3.6  4  3  4  4  4
19.Cranston West                                4.0  4.0  4  4  4  4  4
20.Pawtucket East                               3.6  3.6  3  4  4  3  4
21.Pawtucket West                               3.2  3.4  3  3  3  4  3

22.Providence East                              3.2  3.4  3  3  4  3  3
23.Providence South                             3.4  3.2  3  4  3  3  4
24.Providence West                              3.4  3.2  4  3  3  4  3
25.Providence North                             3.6  3.4  3  4  3  4  4
26.Providence Central                           3.4  3.6  4  3  4  3  3