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Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

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Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#121

Post by rayiner »

scarmig wrote: post #72
totalZero wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advantage of state borders is that they are static and precede many years of polity shift and demographic migration. Districts, on the other hand, are drawn to serve the drawer.

States are also drawn to serve the drawer. Why do we have a North Dakota and a South Dakota? It's not because we had a North Dakota Territory and a South Dakota Territory; it was because they would enter the Union as solidly Republican states, cementing Republican dominance in the Senate and in the Presidency, and admitting two states instead of one doubles the effect. There's no particular reason to treat the curren…

There is a reason, which is that regardless of how and why states were created, they are legally sovereign entities with their own separate governments.

A bunch of countries in the world were drawn on a map with boundaries set by the UN or the British. That doesn’t make them any less sovereign entities.

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#122

Post by qndreoi »

rayiner wrote: post #119

For all of the talk about gerrymandering, it’s worth noting that it had almost no net effect this year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_House_of_Re... Democrats won 50.8% of the House popular vote, and 51% of seats. Or in 2018: Democrats won 54% of seats and 53.4% of the vote. It had a modest effect in 2016: Democrats won 45% of seats but 48% of the vote.

With gerrymandering, the ruling party will pack voters in districts by party. Instead of competitive districts, one party districts are formed, and more extreme candidates win primaries. That's how you end up with really objectionable people being elected instead of centrists, and compromise becomes near impossible.

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#124

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

rayiner wrote: post #120
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the concept of a state as a culture. But like the concept of a state as a community, that means nothing without people. I grew up in a country (long, long ago [0]) that takes it culture so seriously that it frequently forgets this association, and believes that culture has some kind of existence above and beyond the people who might (or might not) share it. NC, relative to the UK, is a young place, and i…

I think people underestimate how much state ties people have. My wife’s family has been in Oregon for 150 years. They all still pretty much live there, a couple of hours from where their family homestead used to be. There’s a strong separatist (secessionist) streak in Oregon too. Even here in Annapolis, an hour from DC, it seems like everyone is from here.

Even in England, which nobody would dispute is "one nation" (note that I used England here, not the UK), you can travel around to various regions and find exactly the same level of regionalism as you're describing. People from (say) Cornwall (extreme southwest) feel a distinctly different identity for themselves compared with (say) the far north east, and particularly with the southeast. We're talking across distances of just a few hundred miles.

So I don't think that this has anything inherently to do with "states" per se. People like to feel affiliated with a region and/or a community that they feel they can get their hearts and minds around. In the US, for so many reasons, "states" tend to be the natural attractor for such feelings. But even then, as you note, the "95ers" versus eastern OR is still a thing.

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#125

Post by ttyprintk »

specialist wrote: post #58
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.…

Maybe less theoretically, the US Senate does fulfill a perspective on food security: cows are better represented than people.

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#126

Post by dillondoyle »

not2b wrote: post #87
pessimizer wrote: post #66

I don't think that political parties or race should be included in redistricting plans, especially since I think that this could often accidentally result in optimally "cracking" or "packing" minority districts. Neither political parties nor races should be intentionally institutionalized. The defining characteristic of a district is that it is geographically contiguous. A defining specification for districts is that…

Districts drawn on natural boundaries as much as possible, that are geographically compact, will do a fairly decent job of representing people fairly as well as giving decent representation to minorities in segregated areas. Gerrymanders often are designed to violate this (for example, chopping up liberal Austin, Texas so that parts of it are in five separate congressional districts, each of which has a suburban majo…

This is a great solution and the historic number of constituents /per CD has been way lower - this is the highest ever and highest across modern democracies.

I believe it would allow more representation for under represented communities.

Here are some great stats: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/31/u-s-populat....

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#127

Post by dragonwriter »

not2b wrote: post #87
pessimizer wrote: post #66

I don't think that political parties or race should be included in redistricting plans, especially since I think that this could often accidentally result in optimally "cracking" or "packing" minority districts. Neither political parties nor races should be intentionally institutionalized. The defining characteristic of a district is that it is geographically contiguous. A defining specification for districts is that…

Districts drawn on natural boundaries as much as possible, that are geographically compact, will do a fairly decent job of representing people fairly as well as giving decent representation to minorities in segregated areas. Gerrymanders often are designed to violate this (for example, chopping up liberal Austin, Texas so that parts of it are in five separate congressional districts, each of which has a suburban majo…

> It would also be an improvement to increase the size of legislatures to reduce the potential for gerrymandering.

Increasing the number of single member districts doesn't reduce the potential for gerrymandering; quite the opposite, more single-member FPTP districts makes it easier to gerrymander.

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#128

Post by minot »

bobthepanda wrote: post #112
minot wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I think fully proportional meaning getting rid of districts is the best idea. The entire state is one district, parties publish a ranked list well before the election, and based on the votes everyone got, the top n people from the party's list get elected. We still have a problem though: how many seats does each state get? Do we still continue to apportion seats each state gets every ten years on a census…

> We still have a problem though: how many seats does each state get? Do we still continue to apportion seats each state gets every ten years on a census? This seems to work and nobody has an issue with the high-level apportionment. The only criticism I've heard of it is the 435 cap, which is kind of arbitrary, and now one rep represents way too many people.

What would the number of representatives look like if it was fluid and we said the unit is the smallest state that only gets one representative is the yard stick?

A quick search shows Wyoming is the smallest state by population with 578,759 so if we decreased the apportionment from seven hundred thousand something to that 578,759, how many more seats would we need?

If a state with a population of 578,759 gets one seat does a state with population of 578,759 * 2 - 1 get two seats or one seat?

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#129

Post by ant6n »

etrabroline wrote: post #106
pessimizer wrote: post #66

I don't think that political parties or race should be included in redistricting plans, especially since I think that this could often accidentally result in optimally "cracking" or "packing" minority districts. Neither political parties nor races should be intentionally institutionalized. The defining characteristic of a district is that it is geographically contiguous. A defining specification for districts is that…

My African American friends are always very excited when a black politician wins an election. I can't imagine they would accept having even fewer black voices than they do now just so that every district can have the same "local weather patterns". That's actually pretty insulting now that I think about it to suggest "proximity to major land features" is more important that having representation for every community. I…

Gerrymandering is used to minimize the number of black people in Parliament.

Re: Auto-Redistrict – automatically creates electoral districts

#130

Post by kukx »

not2b wrote: post #87
pessimizer wrote: post #66

I don't think that political parties or race should be included in redistricting plans, especially since I think that this could often accidentally result in optimally "cracking" or "packing" minority districts. Neither political parties nor races should be intentionally institutionalized. The defining characteristic of a district is that it is geographically contiguous. A defining specification for districts is that…

Districts drawn on natural boundaries as much as possible, that are geographically compact, will do a fairly decent job of representing people fairly as well as giving decent representation to minorities in segregated areas. Gerrymanders often are designed to violate this (for example, chopping up liberal Austin, Texas so that parts of it are in five separate congressional districts, each of which has a suburban majo…

These are all arbitrary numbers. Besides, I am not convinced that a democracy is better than a republic. Additional layers of competent people and detachment from the current will of majority has benefits and mitigates the rule of the mob. It is like a filter on the underlying volatility, which we benefit.
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