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Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

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Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#101

Post by squiggleblaz »

lambertsimnel wrote: post #76
taoistextremist wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think STV presents any function that would really prevent gerrymandering. The only thing it might do is allow entry of third parties, but even that's not guaranteed. But a party could still design districts that they'd always have a shot at the second round in every district while other parties don't. What could potentially help is to have a legislative body not determined by geography, possibly some kind of…

"STV" actually refers to at least two related systems. You seem to be commenting on the single-winner form (also called "Instant Runoff Voting" in the United States). The multi-winner form is a form of proportional representation and as such would provide substantial protection from gerrymandering. The Australian terms "majority-preferential" and "quota-preferential" help make the difference (and the connection) clea…

I think the concern is that you could still, in principle, draw districts that gave you lots of seats, because they're relatively small. STV isn't proportional by design. You want as many of their votes as possible to wind up in the fourth of three quotas, and as many of yours as possible to end up in the three quotas that win seats. For instance, it may be that Us in some state just suddenly start winning two out of three seats in most districts. Make sure the two seat districts go in areas where They have a bit more than fifty percent but not a full two quotas so they split one apiece. The goal is still to waste as many of Their votes as possible to get fifty percent plus one seats.

PR is no panacea. To avoid gerrymandering, you need an adequately high district magnitude. After all, majority-preferential is just quota-preferential with a magnitude of 1. And FPTP is just List PR with a magnitude of 1.

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#102

Post by dragonwriter »

taoistextremist wrote: post #35
CivBase wrote: post #32

Gerrymandering is a problem because we have a poor voting system. I'm not sure if a single transferrable vote (STV) is the best system, but it would significantly reduce the benefit of gerrymandering (and probably result in better candidates from both parties). CGP Grey did a great video on STV: https://youtu.be/l8XOZJkozfI

I don't think STV presents any function that would really prevent gerrymandering. The only thing it might do is allow entry of third parties, but even that's not guaranteed. But a party could still design districts that they'd always have a shot at the second round in every district while other parties don't. What could potentially help is to have a legislative body not determined by geography, possibly some kind of…

> I don't think STV presents any function that would really prevent gerrymandering.

STV with multimember districts (not the degenerate single-member district form also known as IRV) limits the degree of distortion that you can get through how district lines are drawn (whether intentional gerrymandering or otherwise.)

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#103

Post by squiggleblaz »

tzs wrote: post #70
skj wrote: post #65

Here's an idea: 1. decide how many congresspeople there should be 2. allow anyone to run 3. allow anyone to vote for anyone 4. once someone has #voters/#congresspeople, they become a congressperson 5. no one else can vote for that person So, you're not actually competing against another person. You're competing get enough people to say "this person represents me".

Interesting idea. It has a some troubling flaws, though. First, in order to make the lockout in #5 work it would seem that the votes need to be tallied in real time as they are cast. This could be addressed in a couple of ways. (A) Allow votes of the form: Vote for candidate C1 If C1 is locked out, vote for C2 If C2 is locked out, vote for C3 ... That would allow processing votes in batches, ordered by time stamp. (B…

Congratulations, you've just devised the single transferable vote used in Ireland, Malta and Australia. Assuming that "the procedure to whittle down the number of candidates" is "exclude the worst-performing candidate and continue to their C2".

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#104

Post by dragonwriter »

specialist wrote: post #43
CivBase wrote: post #32

Gerrymandering is a problem because we have a poor voting system. I'm not sure if a single transferrable vote (STV) is the best system, but it would significantly reduce the benefit of gerrymandering (and probably result in better candidates from both parties). CGP Grey did a great video on STV: https://youtu.be/l8XOZJkozfI

FWIW, I now advocate Approval Voting because a) superior election integrity prospects and b) nearly ideal fairness. Score Voting and Instant Runoff Voting are a bit more fair than Approval Voting, but much more difficult to implement, execute, audit, describe / educate, etc.

Approval voting and score voting are problematic for reasons standard analyses overlook; there's no obvious mapping from actual preferences to ballot markings. Ranked preference ballots don't have this problem (well, unforced ranking that allows ties doesn't, forced rankings do, but to the degree that approval and score voting do.)

Both scores and approvals are ambiguous in meaning and different people with the exact same preferences would map ballot papers differently. (In situations other than standard public elections, this may not be the case: approval is great for voting on group activities where either “approve” is a binding commitment to participate if the choice is chosen, or “disapprove” is a binding opt-out if the option is chosen.)

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#105

Post by boomboomsubban »

patrickmay wrote: post #50
boomboomsubban wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how it maximizes competitiveness. Even in a perfectly split district, the primary generally has to play towards the base, and it's easier to get more members of your base to vote than to convert someone from the other party. The bipartisan attempt to neutralize other parties helps with that, it's easier for a Republican to turn a Libertarian voter to their side than a Democrat voter.

> it's easier for a Republican to turn a Libertarian voter to their side than a Democrat voter. Maybe in the Reagan years, but it's become more difficult since then. Orwell said "The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians." Both Republicans and Democrats have grown increasingly more authoritarian over the past 20 years.

Reagan wasn't any more in line with Libertarian ideas than the current Republicans, and I'd still be surprised if more members of the Libertarian party voted Democrat than Republican.

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#106

Post by boomboomsubban »

MBCook wrote: post #34
boomboomsubban wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how it maximizes competitiveness. Even in a perfectly split district, the primary generally has to play towards the base, and it's easier to get more members of your base to vote than to convert someone from the other party. The bipartisan attempt to neutralize other parties helps with that, it's easier for a Republican to turn a Libertarian voter to their side than a Democrat voter.

Competitiveness forces candidates to balance playing to the base with not alienating the other side, lest they turn out against you. In the current system the question is who can be the most conservative/liberal. There is little downside to pushing further because there are more votes there but few people you’ll drive away.

The check to that is more parties, where the most conservative/liberal has actual competition on being the most extreme.

Your change to gerrymandering doesn't make pushing for the extremes a worse strategy. Even in a perfectly split district, roughly 25% vote Democrat, 25% Republican, and 50% don't vote. That 50% is a better target than any voters on the fence.

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#107

Post by lambertsimnel »

squiggleblaz wrote: post #101
lambertsimnel wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"STV" actually refers to at least two related systems. You seem to be commenting on the single-winner form (also called "Instant Runoff Voting" in the United States). The multi-winner form is a form of proportional representation and as such would provide substantial protection from gerrymandering. The Australian terms "majority-preferential" and "quota-preferential" help make the difference (and the connection) clea…

I think the concern is that you could still, in principle, draw districts that gave you lots of seats, because they're relatively small. STV isn't proportional by design. You want as many of their votes as possible to wind up in the fourth of three quotas, and as many of yours as possible to end up in the three quotas that win seats. For instance, it may be that Us in some state just suddenly start winning two out of…

You make many important points, but I don't agree that "STV isn't proportional by design". STV-PR provides voters with representatives elected by equal numbers of votes, and that's pretty close to the definition of proportionality. Given enough seats per constituency, STV-PR provides proportionality not only by party, but by any factors voters choose.

Anyway, I was responding to this:

>>> I don't think STV presents any function that would really prevent gerrymandering.

I still believe that STV-PR resists gerrymandering as much as List PR does.

> PR is no panacea. To avoid gerrymandering, you need an adequately high district magnitude.

I agree, but I expect any form of PR would deal a substantial blow to gerrymandering, even if it isn't a panacea. Perhaps the only way to eliminate gerrymandering is to elect all representatives from a single multi-member constituency. (I expect any other system with enough compensatory List PR seats would be practically as resistant to gerrymandering.) Of course, the sticking point for STV-PR is that a ballot paper for STV435 wouldn't be very user friendly :) .

What do you think of STV+ as a compromise? Under STV+ most representatives are elected under STV-PR and a minority are elected through compensatory List PR to increase the precision of party proportionality.

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#108

Post by taoistextremist »

lambertsimnel wrote: post #76
taoistextremist wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think STV presents any function that would really prevent gerrymandering. The only thing it might do is allow entry of third parties, but even that's not guaranteed. But a party could still design districts that they'd always have a shot at the second round in every district while other parties don't. What could potentially help is to have a legislative body not determined by geography, possibly some kind of…

"STV" actually refers to at least two related systems. You seem to be commenting on the single-winner form (also called "Instant Runoff Voting" in the United States). The multi-winner form is a form of proportional representation and as such would provide substantial protection from gerrymandering. The Australian terms "majority-preferential" and "quota-preferential" help make the difference (and the connection) clea…

STV itself merely refers to the voting system. If by "multi-winner" you mean multimember districts, that's still very susceptible to gerrymandering. Anything involving districting is, you can still split up populations so they have weaker representation, even under proportional systems, by making their representation much weaker in many districts and overly strong in a few.

I think Germany has a good solution where there's single-winner districts along with a proportional list. I also think giving authority of redistricting to an authority that can't directly benefit from it could also work.

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#109

Post by lambertsimnel »

taoistextremist wrote: post #108
lambertsimnel wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"STV" actually refers to at least two related systems. You seem to be commenting on the single-winner form (also called "Instant Runoff Voting" in the United States). The multi-winner form is a form of proportional representation and as such would provide substantial protection from gerrymandering. The Australian terms "majority-preferential" and "quota-preferential" help make the difference (and the connection) clea…

STV itself merely refers to the voting system. If by "multi-winner" you mean multimember districts, that's still very susceptible to gerrymandering. Anything involving districting is, you can still split up populations so they have weaker representation, even under proportional systems, by making their representation much weaker in many districts and overly strong in a few. I think Germany has a good solution where t…

> If by "multi-winner" you mean multimember districts

That is what I mean. (In theory you could have an election with one enormous constituency under STV, but I accept that it wouldn't be very practical at government level, even if it works well for electing the boards of non-profit organisations.)

> Anything involving districting is, you can still split up populations so they have weaker representation, even under proportional systems, by making their representation much weaker in many districts and overly strong in a few.

True, but if I understand correctly that's about unequal district population, rather than gerrymandering. Proportional systems with a single constituency or compensatory List PR largely avoid concerns about districting.

> I think Germany has a good solution where there's single-winner districts along with a proportional list.

Germany does indeed have a good system, but I'd prefer it without the single-winner districts and with most representatives elected by STV (ie, the STV+ system described in the last paragraph of my other post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15970289 ).

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#110

Post by dragonwriter »

taoistextremist wrote: post #108
lambertsimnel wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"STV" actually refers to at least two related systems. You seem to be commenting on the single-winner form (also called "Instant Runoff Voting" in the United States). The multi-winner form is a form of proportional representation and as such would provide substantial protection from gerrymandering. The Australian terms "majority-preferential" and "quota-preferential" help make the difference (and the connection) clea…

STV itself merely refers to the voting system. If by "multi-winner" you mean multimember districts, that's still very susceptible to gerrymandering. Anything involving districting is, you can still split up populations so they have weaker representation, even under proportional systems, by making their representation much weaker in many districts and overly strong in a few. I think Germany has a good solution where t…

> If by "multi-winner" you mean multimember districts, that's still very susceptible to gerrymandering.

No, it's not. With any proportional system (including STV), the more members per district, the less distortion is theoretically possible through differences in how district lines are drawn.

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