This describes it quite well.
Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm
31–40 of 178 posts
Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm
#32https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUS9uvYyn3A
this explains it quite well.
Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm
#33I think this is fascinating even if it will never happen. It's important to keep in mind the nominal and actual result of human drawn district boundaries ("gerrymandering" is a pejorative).
In theory, human drawn district boundaries can create districts which are more homogenous so that, for example, a state with a few representatives and a few defined geographic or political divisions can divide things up in a way that makes sense. For example, it would seem odd for Las Vegas to be split into multiple districts in vast barren Nevada (it isn't -- LV is the smallest district).
What happens in practice is: "Contrary to one popular misconception about the practice, the point of gerrymandering isn't to draw yourself a collection of overwhelmingly safe seats. Rather, it's to give your opponents a small number of safe seats, while drawing yourself a larger number of seats that are not quite as safe, but that you can expect to win comfortably." http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/15/am...
Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm
#34The author of this site seems to think that in the ideal world, districts would be decided up with clear straight lines.
This is not the case. Districts should represent distinct groups of people. Ideally, with well drawn districts, political representation will be accurate to the popular vote.
I'd recommend you all read the following article if you haven't yet.
I think if you wanted to solve districts algorithmically, you would need a neural network.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/01/th...
Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. But even when the USA sees the light on proportional representation, there will continue to be winner takes all elections. Executive positions (president, governor, mayor), senators, judges, ballot issues, etc. In those cases, approval voting is the correct answer. Easy to explain, easy to tabulate, most mathematically fair, hardest to game. Per Duvenger's Law, approval voting would probably also help replace…
"But even when the USA sees the light on proportional representation" "Sees the light"? Proportional representation is far from a panacea. It tends to lead to a fragmented government (which is usually bad). It also privileges party over individual candidates (which can be good or bad, but those who dislike partisanship would certainly disapprove). There are other factors at play as well. Most (in)famously, the Weimar…
The European Union, Ireland and Scottish local elections elections use a PR voting system.
Germany and New Zealand use MMR in some of their elections.
Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm
#36Although I don't necessarily disagree with this concept, I am not sure it is well refined. I noticed, looking at a certain city, that even with this shortest splitline the city was still rather split by more or less ethnically demographic lines.
Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm
#37It is pretty... but vastly oversimplifies the problem. If we are ever going to get something for real it needs to take into account real problems. Talking about things like actual operation of elections, not producing high numbers of different ballots because of splitting of districts.
For something to really work it is going to need to take into account things like existing political, and probably some physical, boundaries.
Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm
#38[deleted]
Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm
#39I think this is fascinating even if it will never happen. It's important to keep in mind the nominal and actual result of human drawn district boundaries ("gerrymandering" is a pejorative). In theory, human drawn district boundaries can create districts which are more homogenous so that, for example, a state with a few representatives and a few defined geographic or political divisions can divide things up in a way t…
Contrary to one popular misconception about the practice, the point of gerrymandering isn't to draw yourself a collection of overwhelmingly safe seats. Rather, it's to give your opponents a small number of safe seats, while drawing yourself a larger number of seats that are not quite as safe, but that you can expect to win comfortably.
That almost sounds like a tautology.
Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. But even when the USA sees the light on proportional representation, there will continue to be winner takes all elections. Executive positions (president, governor, mayor), senators, judges, ballot issues, etc. In those cases, approval voting is the correct answer. Easy to explain, easy to tabulate, most mathematically fair, hardest to game. Per Duvenger's Law, approval voting would probably also help replace…
"But even when the USA sees the light on proportional representation" "Sees the light"? Proportional representation is far from a panacea. It tends to lead to a fragmented government (which is usually bad). It also privileges party over individual candidates (which can be good or bad, but those who dislike partisanship would certainly disapprove). There are other factors at play as well. Most (in)famously, the Weimar…
> Proportional representation is far from a panacea.
Among modern, established democracies, proportionality of representation is pretty closely linked to public satisfaction with government, and public participation with government. Its as close to a panacea for effective democracy as you could have -- which isn't surprising, proportionality of representation is a pretty direct measure of the extent to which a government is democratic.
> It tends to lead to a fragmented government (which is usually bad).
Any government in a system with a diversity of viewpoints is either going to be minoritarian or coalition based; winner take all tends to majority-of-a-majority -- which can be minoritarian -- and, whether it is that or not, tends also to involve non-overt coalition building in structuring big-tent parties. PR systems tend to be more likely to be actually majoritarian, and tend to feature explicit -- and thus more accountable -- coalition building. It doesn't lead to "fragmented" government by any meaningful measures.
Itssometimes portrayed as leading to less stable government, because in parliamentary systems its associated with more rapid turnover of government administrations/cabinets, but by another measure, it leads to more stable government, as while there is more frequent turnover of cabinets, there is more continuity between successive governments/cabinets, and more continuity in governments/cabinets over time.
> It also privileges party over individual candidates (which can be good or bad, but those who dislike partisanship would certainly disapprove).
Certain methods of achieving proportionality (e.g., party list systems) may do so; candidate-centered election methods with rules that produce proportional results (like single transferrable vote in small multimember districts) do not. In fact, such systems would do the opposite compared to the status quo system in the US, emphasizing individual candidates over party by offering more competition, even in general elections, between individual candidates even in districts with a clear majority for a single party.
> Most (in)famously, the Weimar Republic used PR. That didn't end well.
Constitutional provisions for Presidential rule-by-decree had a lot to do with that, PR -- or even the particular form of PR used by the Weimar Republic -- well, if you want to argue that that was responsible for something, then go ahead and make that argument.