Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by DasIch » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 1:13 PM UTC

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #100

dragonwriter wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Proportional representation is far from a panacea. Among modern, established democracies, proportionality of representation is pretty closely linked to public satisfaction with government, and public participation with government. Its as close to a panacea for effective democracy as you could have -- which isn't surprising, proportionality of representation is a pretty direct measure of the extent to which a govern…

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.

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

#112

Post by philwelch » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 1:18 PM UTC

curun1r wrote: post #29

tunesmith wrote: post #2

Isn't gerrymandering a much more complex problem than that makes it out to be? I've always thought the problem was that it's actually difficult to even come up with a definition of what fair is. For instance, do you want each district to be as representative of the population as possible? Or do you want the house of representatives to be as representative of the population as possible? I suspect that you can't have b…

I don't think the point is to make the result fair, I think the point is to make the process fair. The US ideal has always been about equality opportunity rather than equal outcome. By agreeing on an algorithm for drawing lines, you remove any bias from the process, which is probably as good as we're going to get. I do think the algorithm presented here is too simplistic. It's likely to create situations where people…

I'm not sure why you have the assumption of one polling place per district, or even the assumption of having polling places at all. Washington and Oregon have both transitioned to 100% vote by mail.

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

#113

Post by chippy » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 1:20 PM UTC

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.

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

#114

Post by philwelch » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 1:24 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #106

rmc wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder is this one reason some in the US Establishment are opposed to Peuto Rico being a state? Since it would probably be 2 Democrats?

There is no question about it. Same with the District of Columbia and various other places that should arguably already be states. They'd be likely to provide Democratic Senators, so there is a gigantic roadblock to keep this from happening.

Likewise, the promise of 2 Democratic senators is the main reason that Democrats are pushing for DC statehood rather than the more logical outcome, which would be retrocession of the city of Washington to Maryland.

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

#115

Post by eli_gottlieb » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 1:28 PM UTC

nickff wrote: post #78

curun1r wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the point is to make the result fair, I think the point is to make the process fair. The US ideal has always been about equality opportunity rather than equal outcome. By agreeing on an algorithm for drawing lines, you remove any bias from the process, which is probably as good as we're going to get. I do think the algorithm presented here is too simplistic. It's likely to create situations where people…

Why is voter turn-out the relevant metric? You are implicitly assuming that increasing voter turn-out is a worthy goal in and of itself, and I am not sure why. Is it important to you that each voter feel involved, or that they are responsible for their representatives, or do you believe that an increase in the number of voters would improve policies and outcomes? I would support an attempt to increase voter turn-out…

Voter turn-out indicates that information about platforms is passing from politicians to voters, and information about preferences is passing from voters to politicians. Low voter turn-out has tended to co-occur with the managerial turn of politics, in which no party or candidate offers any substantial choice to even the most enthusiastically civic subset of the population.

Essentially, low voter turnout is a correlated symptom of de-facto oligarchy.

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

#116

Post by tfinniga » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 1:34 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #54

chasing wrote: post #9

The problem with gerrymandering isn't that people aren't capable of drawing simple lines to split states into districts.

Oh, but this algorithms removes all the choice. So there's nothing up anyone's sleeves.

It just moves the problem.

Instead of arguing about the borders, you have arguments about which clustering algorithm to use, and what the weights to the inputs should be.

A simplistic algorithm like shortest splitline will give impractical results in many cases. For sure you're going to put Eagleton and Pawnee in the same district.

Unless you have a mathematical definition of districts that lead to good government, a purely mathematical solution won't be possible.

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

#117

Post by Turing_Machine » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 1:35 PM UTC

vacri wrote: post #76

Turing_Machine wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The stalemate of the past two terms in the US doesn't say much for winner-takes-all." You think it's bad with two parties who can't agree on anything? Try twenty parties who can't agree on anything. "Ah, you're just trolling." No, I certainly am not trolling. The multitude of parties in the Weimar Republic, which could not form an effective government for two entire election cycles, were directly responsible for Hit…

> Try twenty parties who can't agree on anything. What, multipolar politics, like modern Germany or Sweden or Australia? Wealthy, socially progressive countries with high standards of living? You're just spreading FUD. PR was one of a great many factors involved in the rise of Hitler, but keep in mind that the US system also let a president get elected that didn't win the popular vote, who then went on to destroy a f…

"What, multipolar politics, like modern Germany"

Modern Germany does not have PR. For good reason.

" PR was one of a great many factors involved in the rise of Hitler, but keep in mind that the US system also let a president get elected that didn't win the popular vote"

The U.S. President has never been elected by popular vote. Again, for good reason. Feature, not bug.

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

#118

Post by Steuard » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

phphphph wrote: post #105

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.

Wouldn't just counting total votes rather than winning regions be the simplest fix? (Honest question, not USAmerican)

In this context, each region sends one member to the House of Representatives in Washington. So it is a "count total votes" process within the region, but there's no way to aggregate between regions (without fundamentally changing our political system).

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

#119

Post by cschmidt » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 1:45 PM UTC

That seems to be a very oversimple approach. Cities are the most obvious problem. You kind of want a population center to have a single congressmen representing it. Mathematically, you want districts to be fairly compact. There have a been several Operations Research papers that try to do things in a more practical way.

Also, a greedy approach (split in half, repeat) seems weird to me.

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

#120

Post by Turing_Machine » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 1:48 PM UTC

vacri wrote: post #97

Turing_Machine wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Among modern, established democracies, proportionality of representation is pretty closely linked to public satisfaction with government" When one of these "modern, established democracies" manages to maintain a stable government (or even survive) for as long as the United States has, perhaps that statement could be made. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation#Li... Other than perhaps the Scandina…

> When one of these "modern, established democracies" manages to maintain a stable government (or even survive) for as long as the United States has That's a lovely artificial requirement you've made there. I assume this means that you think the US system of government is inferior to the UK system of government, since longevity is apparently the only requirement? And apparently having an extremely bloody secession wa…

"That's a lovely artificial requirement you've made there."

Wanting a system of government with proven stability is not a "straw man".

"I assume this means that you think the US system of government is inferior to the UK system of government"

The UK doesn't have PR either. And no, it means nothing of the sort. My argument is that PR tends to be unstable, not that the US system is the only possible stable system.