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Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm

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Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm

#121

Post by randcraw »

dragonwriter wrote: post #109
notahacker wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which optimization criteria and algorithm to use is also a political decision, and the people making that decision are the same as the ones responsible for massive gerrymandering. It's actually easier to defend perverse results[1] if they're the consequence of a redistricting from scratch by the "fair" algorithm you've chosen rather than arbitrarily switching parts of cities from one countryside district to another i…

Its worth noting that almost any party-blind algorithm for drawing district lives is going to overrepresent Republicans, because Democratic support is very concentrated in large cities, resulting in most party-blind algorithms creating few super majority Democratic districts and many bare majority Republican districts. (Few and many both being in relation to the proportion of each party in the populace.)

In the rural US, any district outside an urban area is NOT a 'bare majority republican district'; they're all large majority republican districts. Rural America is devoutly republican, outside recently formed border districts (formed since 1980) that are largely immigrant.

Most gerrymandering doesn't bias rural districts; it biases suburban districts that are marginal majorities (usu republican) only after redrawing the lines. Any automatic line redrawing algorithm will defeat this, since it takes a lot of perverse effort to draw boundaries that are sufficiently biased to serve Machiavellian pols.

Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm

#122

Post by spacecowboy_lon »

DasIch wrote: post #111
spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it breaks the personal link with the electorate with party placemen/insiders getting the top positions on the list. Pr also gives to much power fringe party's eg Germany totally abandoning nukes to keep the 1 or 2 greens onside to prop up Angela's government.

What the Greens want is completely irrelevant to Merkel's government and has been for as long as she has been Bundeskanzlerin. Abandoning nuclear energy is a widely accepted move by the majority of the population and across political parties. If anything the people wanting to keep nuclear energy, are in a minority. A minority that is not willing to risk actually advocating for nuclear energy.

You know how much the consumer price of electricity has gone up in Germany?

And I bet until last week the German "consumer" loved diesel powered cars (and the tax benefits) and ignored the down sides of targeting CO2 vs NOX

Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm

#123

Post by saalweachter »

nickff wrote: post #71
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It tends to lead to a fragmented government (which is usually bad). Already the case. It also privileges party over individual candidates Distinction without a difference. Even if the focus is on the candidates, they're all firmly partisan with little variation. Most (in)famously, the Weimar Republic used PR. That didn't end well. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HitlerAteSugar

I am not sure what to make of your first point, as it is not clear that we (HN) have a common understanding of what is meant by "fragmented". Is it a government which does not pass laws or spend money on specific programs which different groups oppose for varying reasons, or would that be a unified opposition? Would fragmented government pass a great many laws and spending programs with no unified goal, to appease di…

The rigid party discipline of the Republican party (in Congress) is starting to look like a temporary aberration. It was caused by a period of unusually strong party control over campaign finances. For a couple of decades there, Congressional leaders were able to strongly prevent Congressmen from being re-elected if they bucked the party.

Ironically, I suspect SuperPACs are contributing to the decay of Republican cohesion -- the party has lost its strong control over re-election. At this point the only thing Republicans in Congress can agree upon is that they dislike anything they suspect a Democrat -- especially the President -- of liking.

As for Democrats, Will Roger's famous quote is something like "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."

Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm

#124

Post by LordKano »

specialist wrote: post #10
dragonwriter wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't gerrymandering a much more complex problem than that makes it out to be? No, its vastly simpler: the problem with gerrymandering is that there is no good way to draw single-member winner-take-all districts, and the solution is just don't do that . Multimember districts with a system that provides proportional representation within each district (e.g., five-member districts with STV) solve the problem pretty m…

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…

I kind of like approval voting but there's one big problem.

How to we enact it?

I also see a small problem.

Party representatives stand outside of polling places and present voters with lists of party endorsed candidates. People who currently vote solely on the basis of party will just approve only candidates who are on the party provided list.

The two major parties control virtually every legislative body in the country and the current system serves them best.

Knee-jerk answers like "Vote the bums out" isn't realistic. I'm thinking back to when the people of Washington DC voted back into office as their mayor, a man who was videotaped smoking crack cocaine. Even when it should be a simple matter, party politics trumps common sense.

Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm

#125

Post by randcraw »

JDDunn9 wrote: post #77

Gerrymandering gets attention because it is malicious misrepresentation, but unintentional misrepresentation is just as bad. Voting is a flawed system that will always give some voters more voice than others. - The people who voted for the loser will not be represented (one of the reasons minorities are underrepresented). - The need of local representation is illusory. Make a list of all the political issues you care…

Gerrymandering applies as much to local school, county, and state districts as it does federal districts. At the school and county and state level, all issues are local. In fact, most legislation that has a large tangible effect on your kids, your home, and your job occurs locally, not federally.

Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm

#126

Post by asmithmd1 »

Technology can be used to help with this problem. Take a look at the maps from CommonCensus:

http://commoncensus.org/maps.php#local_maps

First people "vote" for the boundaries of their neighborhood and then congressional districts are created using these neighborhoods as atomic.

Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm

#127

Post by saalweachter »

peter303 wrote: post #104

Splitline doesnt honor community or geographic boundaries. I'd suggest a modification that honors zipcode boundaries. The USPS has figured out basic units already.

Fun fact: there is actually no such thing as ZIP code boundaries.

ZIP codes are actually based on delivery routes: your ZIP code is the post office your mail carrier leaves from. ZIP codes will not actually respect community boundaries: if a town lies between two post offices, it is frequently more efficient for mail to be delivered by carriers from multiple post offices.

Moreover, not every address in the US receives home delivery. If the post office does not have a delivery route going past your home address, you can instead get a post office box from whichever post office you find most convenient. What happens to packages addressed to those street addresses is ... complex.

The "ZIP code maps" you have probably seen are actually creations of third-parties. If you ask very nicely, the Post Office will give you a list of which street addresses belong to which ZIP codes. A couple of different third party map-makers will then try to create a map based on these lists. They are not always useful or accurate.

Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm

#128

Post by dhimes »

tomohawk wrote: post #93

I'd love to get rid of gerrymandering. I live in a massively gerrymandered district where the representative can very safely ignore the area where I live. This algorithm appears to have some interesting results though. Check out Maryland: http://rangevoting.org/Splitline2009/md.png

(O/T) And I live in the town where Gerry was from (his name is pronounced with a hard-G by the way, like Gail, not Jerry).

We have a drinking club named after him!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbridge_Gerry

Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm

#129

Post by saalweachter »

chippy wrote: post #113
peter303 wrote: post #104

Splitline doesnt honor community or geographic boundaries. I'd suggest a modification that honors zipcode boundaries. The USPS has figured out basic units already.

The algorithm uses US Census data, so perhaps using county boundaries would be ideal? I'm not american, but I imagine both census and zipline boundaries as honouring geographic and community boundaries.

County boundaries in much of the US are like state boundaries: people drew a bunch of straight lines through a map, with only the slightest regard for natural barriers, to create areas of pleasing size. It is quite common to have large population centers crossing county boundaries, or have natural barriers in the middle of a county with population centers on either side.

Re: Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm

#130

Post by JoeAltmaier »

saalweachter wrote: post #127
peter303 wrote: post #104

Splitline doesnt honor community or geographic boundaries. I'd suggest a modification that honors zipcode boundaries. The USPS has figured out basic units already.

Fun fact: there is actually no such thing as ZIP code boundaries. ZIP codes are actually based on delivery routes: your ZIP code is the post office your mail carrier leaves from. ZIP codes will not actually respect community boundaries: if a town lies between two post offices, it is frequently more efficient for mail to be delivered by carriers from multiple post offices. Moreover, not every address in the US receive…

Ok I wondered about this. Our local village has no mail delivery; everybody in town has to have a PO box. I thought Federal mail delivery was a given thing, like a right. How can the town just decide to blow it off?
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