Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts • Hacker News Board

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#51

Post by maxerickson » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 8:40 PM UTC

sudosteph wrote: post #40

maxerickson wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competitive districts select representative candidates. Safer districts select the candidate aligned with the majority party (competitive primaries are less common than competitive elections). Michigan has term limits. The notional goal is to avoid people that become lifetime representatives; much of the actual outcome is that policy expertise is concentrated in lobbying groups, and well liked, effective legislators…

I don't think your first sentence necessarily holds true - at least it doesn't lately. We just don't see powerful "blue dog democrats" and moderate republicans holding the keys any more. While moderate candidates have more independent appeal - it's voter turnout that wins elections, even in competitve districts. Appealing to emotions, especially appealing to fear has been extremely successful at getting turnout for p…

Sure, it isn't an absolute effect, I could have phrased that better. I think it's pretty clearly a directional effect that safer districts pick their representatives in the primary (which often have a candidate backed by the institutional power structure).

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#52

Post by wffurr » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 8:42 PM UTC

sudosteph wrote: post #13

I'm a North Carolinian - so it's fair to say that "creative" redistricting has harmed my state a bit more than most. However, I disagree with fundamental precepts they are using because they do not take culture into account. The representative system works best when it's able to group people with similar interests and values and lets them elect someone who can share those interests. I do not think that valuing "compa…

A maximally representative district would be a large multi-representative district that elects 5 representative using ranked choice or approval voting.

Then you get the property of representation you're looking for without having to draw fine-grained arbitrary distinctions on a map.

https://www.fairvote.org/fair_representation#what_is_fair_vo...

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#53

Post by WorldMaker » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

ogre_codes wrote: post #47

phnofive wrote: post #45

Are geographic districts required by the Constitution? State and Federal laws certainly follow from this assumption, but could a state simply assign registered voters at random (per election, roughly in line with ballots being finalized) to each of its districts? Single-seated states already enjoy this luxury.

It is good to know who your representative is and for a representative to be able to visit their district and have community meetings so they can (in theory) represent the interests of the people in that community. If the district is spread across the state like avocado on toast, you aren't really representing anyone.

If you keep the group small enough per representative you can still hold community meetings. The internet adds more options for "central meeting places" even if the geography is absurdly large (say, a random sampling of Texas or Alaska) even if you can't find other ways to incentivize travel to in person meetings.

That said though, when was the last time any representative in the US was concerned about in person community meetings? It's a beautiful ideal, but in practice it seems nonexistent. The status quo, especially when you look at the maps of how some districts have been gerrymandered to incredibly abstract shapes is already broken from the ideal. Maybe it's time to shift the ideal? We have the technology to try new things that aren't necessarily beholden to geography today, among other ideas.

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#54

Post by ablerman » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

sudosteph wrote: post #32

jandrese wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I agree with this. It seems to create a lot of safe seats but with just one single token representative for the entire group who doesn't have enough power to get an agenda passed. If those voters were spread across all of the state's representatives then they would have to care what the group thinks, but when they're all crammed into a single token rep they can be more easily ignored.

That sounds bad, but it's really not. First of all, sometimes groups should be ignored. For example, the pig farming agriculture industry of NC is causing huge environmental destruction. If the rest of the state doesn't like the precedent it sets to let these companies contaminate our water supply - then we shouldn't have to all compromise our values just because people in that industry want special treatment and com…

Who gets to decide which groups "should be ignored". The pig farmers certainly don't agree. The whole point of competitive districts is that the groups who should be ignored will be eliminated by competition. Your whole premise seems to set up all districts with functional lifetime appointments rather than elections.

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#55

Post by ogre_codes » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 9:00 PM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #53

ogre_codes wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is good to know who your representative is and for a representative to be able to visit their district and have community meetings so they can (in theory) represent the interests of the people in that community. If the district is spread across the state like avocado on toast, you aren't really representing anyone.

If you keep the group small enough per representative you can still hold community meetings. The internet adds more options for "central meeting places" even if the geography is absurdly large (say, a random sampling of Texas or Alaska) even if you can't find other ways to incentivize travel to in person meetings. That said though, when was the last time any representative in the US was concerned about in person comm…

> The status quo, especially when you look at the maps of how some districts have been gerrymandered to incredibly abstract shapes is already broken from the ideal.

This is something we can fix though.

I know where our representative's office is. While I haven't gone to our representative for specific needs, I know people who have. Knowing our representative lives in our district and is local means I know he understands what our community is dealing with at least at some level.

While there are a lot of things broken with the current representative model, being regional is not the problem. (The stupid way they designate the "regions" on the other hand is)

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#56

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #51

sudosteph wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your first sentence necessarily holds true - at least it doesn't lately. We just don't see powerful "blue dog democrats" and moderate republicans holding the keys any more. While moderate candidates have more independent appeal - it's voter turnout that wins elections, even in competitve districts. Appealing to emotions, especially appealing to fear has been extremely successful at getting turnout for p…

Sure, it isn't an absolute effect, I could have phrased that better. I think it's pretty clearly a directional effect that safer districts pick their representatives in the primary (which often have a candidate backed by the institutional power structure).

But that just reflects the fact that a given party has overwhelming support in those districts. It doesn't mean that the result is unrepresentative. So Phila. and NYC pick their mayors in the Democratic Party primary. The result isn't unrepresentative - there was no question that the mayor was going to be a Democrat.

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#57

Post by sudosteph » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

ablerman wrote: post #54

sudosteph wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds bad, but it's really not. First of all, sometimes groups should be ignored. For example, the pig farming agriculture industry of NC is causing huge environmental destruction. If the rest of the state doesn't like the precedent it sets to let these companies contaminate our water supply - then we shouldn't have to all compromise our values just because people in that industry want special treatment and com…

Who gets to decide which groups "should be ignored". The pig farmers certainly don't agree. The whole point of competitive districts is that the groups who should be ignored will be eliminated by competition. Your whole premise seems to set up all districts with functional lifetime appointments rather than elections.

In competitive districts, politicians are far more dependent on campaign funding. Competitive elections are extremely expensive. So the group that gets ignored is just the group that has the least money to throw at candidates. It's the average person that always loses in that case. That's not fair either.

I would certainly prefer term limits, but if a population thinks their representative does a good job representing their needs - why shouldn't they get re-elected? Nobody is stopping them from having a competitive primary. Remember, AOC only got elected because her district was so non-competitive for republicans, that the establishment didn't bother channeling massive money into the primary for the incumbent. So this setup would actually make it easier for non-establishment candidates to sneak in, and even incentivize the other party to run a non-traditional candidate to compete (ie, like how dems used to win with blue dog democrats in rural areas).

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#58

Post by specialist » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

spankalee wrote: post #2

Districts themselves are the problem. They can be more "fair" than they are currently, but they can't overcome the fact that common interests and voting alignment are not exclusively geographic. Removing districts, or enlarging them so the borders barely matter, and implementing ranked choice voting and proportional representation is a far, far better solution.

PR seems like the ultimate end goal. Especially for assemblies. Ideally, eliminating districts.

Because of path dependencies (the legal version of technical debt), we gotta start where we're at. So I support any and all reforms that move us in that direction.

I've long advocated approval voting for executive and single member districts. But since I support any move away from FPTP, I support my friends working on RCV. (Don't let perfection be the enemy of good enough.)

I'm newly curious about multimember districts. I don't really get the math (details) yet. I read that Illinois' state house had multimember districts and that it was more effective and less polarized today. And this reform might be an easier lift.

I'm also newly curious about unicameral legislatures. Especially at the state level. Meaning no upper houses aka senates. Or maybe giving the senates different responsibilities. Like the lower house controls the budget and appropriations whereas the upper house does more meta stuff like democratic and governmental reforms. I like the notion of a fast changing lower house and a slower changing upper house. One of the stated intents of the US Senate. But without a more clear division of labor (balance of powers), it hasn't seemed to work out.

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#59

Post by maxerickson » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #56

maxerickson wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it isn't an absolute effect, I could have phrased that better. I think it's pretty clearly a directional effect that safer districts pick their representatives in the primary (which often have a candidate backed by the institutional power structure).

But that just reflects the fact that a given party has overwhelming support in those districts. It doesn't mean that the result is unrepresentative. So Phila. and NYC pick their mayors in the Democratic Party primary. The result isn't unrepresentative - there was no question that the mayor was going to be a Democrat.

Yeah, I'm not arguing that it isn't representative, I'm arguing that we shouldn't design for that outcome, because it shifts power in the direction of the party and away from the constituents (and it does so even in districts where the constituents are largely comfortable with the resulting representative).

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#60

Post by specialist » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

chris123 wrote: post #19

Pretty sure the politicians don't want it fair. Politicians don't do fair. It's the worst of humans that are attracted to politics and surviving politics, after all.

Most every incumbent tries to pull the ladder up after themselves. That's why it's so ridiculous to have electeds in charge of redistricting, reforms, oversight.

Even the appearance of a conflict of interest should be treated as a conflict of interest. No burden of proof required.