Utility Ghost: Gamified redistricting with partisan symmetry
1–10 of 26 posts
Re: Utility Ghost: Gamified redistricting with partisan symmetry
#2So effectively, both parties take turns choosing what "atoms" (counties, districts, etc) belong in which districts. They must be contiguous. I'd like to see how this relates to the efficiency gap that was heavily used around gerrymandering in Wisconsin. It's mentioned, but they don't go back to analyze how it would be---at least I didn't see it from a simple search.
Re: Utility Ghost: Gamified redistricting with partisan symmetry
#3The abstract describes a system for achieving shoddy Proportional Representation through bipartisan (or multi-partisan) gerrymandering. If you want Proportional Representation, then just do that and don't try to gerrymander districts to achieve it. I think this country is too stuck on the notion of districts and needs to think outside the box and paint outside the lines (nyuks intended). I think we keep describing what we want as some sort of identity/ideology based representation and those things are now much more important to us than geography and _where_ a person lives. So we should have at-large PR or large multi-member districts (8 or more reps per district).
Re: Utility Ghost: Gamified redistricting with partisan symmetry
#4So effectively, both parties take turns choosing what "atoms" (counties, districts, etc) belong in which districts. They must be contiguous. I'd like to see how this relates to the efficiency gap that was heavily used around gerrymandering in Wisconsin. It's mentioned, but they don't go back to analyze how it would be---at least I didn't see it from a simple search.
The efficiency gap is just one measure of partisan bias that can be used to assess the utility/efficacy of any redistricting plan. The game the authors propose is (basically) an algorithm to draw good districts between two players. So, there's no real or expected relationship between the two... partisan control (the objective the authors cite) isn't necessarily related to the efficiency of that control measured by the efficiency gap. The problem is that so many different measures of fairness exist, have validity, and can be used in different legal or jurisprudential contexts, we're always talking past each other on the meaning of these measures.
Re: Utility Ghost: Gamified redistricting with partisan symmetry
#5The abstract describes a system for achieving shoddy Proportional Representation through bipartisan (or multi-partisan) gerrymandering. If you want Proportional Representation, then just do that and don't try to gerrymander districts to achieve it. I think this country is too stuck on the notion of districts and needs to think outside the box and paint outside the lines (nyuks intended). I think we keep describing wh…
I agree we should switch to Proportional Representation. Unfortunately this would weak our duopoly parties, allowing third parties to win seats. So they (D&R) will never change the laws.
In a FPTP election, 10-20% of the votes are wasted on a 3rd party. In a PR election, 10-20% of the votes get 10-20% of the seats.
Re: Utility Ghost: Gamified redistricting with partisan symmetry
#6The abstract describes a system for achieving shoddy Proportional Representation through bipartisan (or multi-partisan) gerrymandering. If you want Proportional Representation, then just do that and don't try to gerrymander districts to achieve it. I think this country is too stuck on the notion of districts and needs to think outside the box and paint outside the lines (nyuks intended). I think we keep describing wh…
I agree we should switch to Proportional Representation. Unfortunately this would weak our duopoly parties, allowing third parties to win seats. So they (D&R) will never change the laws. In a FPTP election, 10-20% of the votes are wasted on a 3rd party. In a PR election, 10-20% of the votes get 10-20% of the seats.
> Unfortunately this would weak our duopoly parties, allowing third parties to win seats. So they (D&R) will never change the laws.
(1) They will change the law if the choice is being displaced as major parties (i.e., if people care enough), and
(2) for state government, in many cases the elected members of political parties would not need to act, the citizenry could change the laws directly,
> In a FPTP election, 10-20% of the votes are wasted on a 3rd party. In a PR election, 10-20% of the votes get 10-20% of the seats.
Assuming you mean party list PR, that's true, but then also individual candidates aren't accountable to the general electorate and no one has anyone they can point to as “their” representative. That's a significant trade-off; there are systems which achieve rough proportionality (far better than FPTP) that don't have these problems (i.e., STV with small, e.g. 5-member, districts), but if you look simply at a naive “wastee vote” metric as you've constructed here they may not be better than FPTP.
> In a FPTP election, 10-20% of the votes are wasted on a 3rd party
In the US, the number is much lower; of course, the problem is as big or bigger if you add in abstentions and tactical votes.
Re: Utility Ghost: Gamified redistricting with partisan symmetry
#7The abstract describes a system for achieving shoddy Proportional Representation through bipartisan (or multi-partisan) gerrymandering. If you want Proportional Representation, then just do that and don't try to gerrymander districts to achieve it. I think this country is too stuck on the notion of districts and needs to think outside the box and paint outside the lines (nyuks intended). I think we keep describing wh…
A switch to PR would require a change to federal law. Meanwhile, in the absence of PR, any state is free to adopt its own redistricting policy. The latter approach seems much more feasible.
Re: Utility Ghost: Gamified redistricting with partisan symmetry
#8The abstract describes a system for achieving shoddy Proportional Representation through bipartisan (or multi-partisan) gerrymandering. If you want Proportional Representation, then just do that and don't try to gerrymander districts to achieve it. I think this country is too stuck on the notion of districts and needs to think outside the box and paint outside the lines (nyuks intended). I think we keep describing wh…
A switch to PR would require a change to federal law. Meanwhile, in the absence of PR, any state is free to adopt its own redistricting policy. The latter approach seems much more feasible.
A State changing how it runs its State Legislature is a change to the State Constitution either way, whether taking away the map drawing authority from the Legislature itself or changing the structure of the Legislature to be non-districted or multi-member districted.
Re: Utility Ghost: Gamified redistricting with partisan symmetry
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree we should switch to Proportional Representation. Unfortunately this would weak our duopoly parties, allowing third parties to win seats. So they (D&R) will never change the laws. In a FPTP election, 10-20% of the votes are wasted on a 3rd party. In a PR election, 10-20% of the votes get 10-20% of the seats.
> Unfortunately this would weak our duopoly parties, allowing third parties to win seats. So they (D&R) will never change the laws. (1) They will change the law if the choice is being displaced as major parties (i.e., if people care enough), and (2) for state government, in many cases the elected members of political parties would not need to act, the citizenry could change the laws directly, > In a FPTP election, 10…
I advocate STV with larger sets, 8 or more. The wasted vote is smaller, any constituency that can show up and get out the vote for 1/N of the total gets one of the N seats. 5 seats or fewer biases towards the major parties. Lots of 5 seat sets will go 3-to-2 or 2-to-3. I'd like to get in other voices and split it 5/3/1 or 4/4/1. And I bet over time that 1 would grow to 2, but we have a bootstrapping problem in the current system that always throws away that smaller voice.
Re: Utility Ghost: Gamified redistricting with partisan symmetry
#10The abstract describes a system for achieving shoddy Proportional Representation through bipartisan (or multi-partisan) gerrymandering. If you want Proportional Representation, then just do that and don't try to gerrymander districts to achieve it. I think this country is too stuck on the notion of districts and needs to think outside the box and paint outside the lines (nyuks intended). I think we keep describing wh…
A switch to PR would require a change to federal law. Meanwhile, in the absence of PR, any state is free to adopt its own redistricting policy. The latter approach seems much more feasible.
It’s a single statute that requires single member districts. It wouldn’t be difficult to change. Hell, it may even be unconstitutional.