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

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

#141

Post by pc86 » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 3:04 PM UTC

schoen wrote: post #82

WildUtah wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no constitutional provision that would ever allow abolishing the Senate. The Constitution of the USA prohibits any amendment that could change the disproportionality of the Senate.

Technically it says that "no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate" so the Senate could presumably be abolished by constitutional amendment if all states agreed. (I wonder about replacing the Senate with another legislative house and giving the existing Senate largely ceremonial responsibilities without formally abolishing it -- would that count as depriving the states of e…

Presumably any amendment that would abolish or sufficiently alter the Senate would simply remove that article as well.

The phrase "the Constitution prohibits this amendment" doesn't make any sense because an amendment to the Constitution cannot by definition be unconstitutional.

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

#142

Post by JoeAltmaier » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 3:05 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #141

schoen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically it says that "no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate" so the Senate could presumably be abolished by constitutional amendment if all states agreed. (I wonder about replacing the Senate with another legislative house and giving the existing Senate largely ceremonial responsibilities without formally abolishing it -- would that count as depriving the states of e…

Presumably any amendment that would abolish or sufficiently alter the Senate would simply remove that article as well. The phrase "the Constitution prohibits this amendment" doesn't make any sense because an amendment to the Constitution cannot by definition be unconstitutional.

Perhaps that was meant to say, it would make the Constitution internally contradict itself?

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

#143

Post by emergentcypher » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 3:07 PM UTC

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #132

specialist wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. But even when the USA sees the light on proportional representation, there will continue to be winner takes all elections. Executive positions (president, governor, mayor), senators, judges, ballot issues, etc. In those cases, approval voting is the correct answer. Easy to explain, easy to tabulate, most mathematically fair, hardest to game. Per Duvenger's Law, approval voting would probably also help replace…

I see no appeal in proportional representation. The idea that I can only vote for a party, and that they get to choose which people actually hold those seats... it is repulsive and sickening.

Any belief you have that the present system works any differently is a fiction.

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

#144

Post by panglott » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 3:11 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…

The ethical case for democracy rests not on whether democracy leads to optimal policies and outcomes (which is ridiculous), but on the degree to which it includes individuals in the politics of the state exercise of power over them. The state necessarily has power over individuals, and the ethical basis for the use of that power declines to the extent that the state excludes people from participation in political decisions. It erodes the consent of the governed. The core injustice of things like poll taxes and grandfather clauses is not that they led directly to suboptimal policies, but that they disenfranchised black voters, which is what led to policies that the white supremacists considered optimal.

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

#145

Post by CWuestefeld » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 3:13 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…

With a quick visual survey of their results, it seems this is a particular weakness of this algorithm. It appears to me that it's tending to split large cities into chunks and tie each chunk in with a huge outlying area.

Not only does that inconvenience polling places, but I think it does impose some socio-political outcome. I'm not sure whether it's good or bad, but the decision to not have cities voting as a block, and instead to include slices of them with their suburbs and outlying rural areas, certainly impacts the way representation will be determined.

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

#146

Post by JoeAltmaier » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 3:14 PM UTC

CWuestefeld wrote: post #145

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…

With a quick visual survey of their results, it seems this is a particular weakness of this algorithm. It appears to me that it's tending to split large cities into chunks and tie each chunk in with a huge outlying area. Not only does that inconvenience polling places, but I think it does impose some socio-political outcome. I'm not sure whether it's good or bad, but the decision to not have cities voting as a block,…

True. Rural residents will often have completely different issues than city dwellers. To include them in a slice of the city pie, is probably going to entirely disenfranchise them. Depends on the numbers.

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

#147

Post by panglott » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 3:17 PM UTC

JDDunn9 wrote: post #77

Gerrymandering gets attention because it is malicious misrepresentation, but unintentional misrepresentation is just as bad. Voting is a flawed system that will always give some voters more voice than others. - The people who voted for the loser will not be represented (one of the reasons minorities are underrepresented). - The need of local representation is illusory. Make a list of all the political issues you care…

You'd get a good sample, but a poor representative. If a group of people is attempting to choose a person to advocate their interests, they'll choose the person best at advocacy, who is likely atypical in a variety of ways.

Because typically people are bad at public speaking, rhetoric, bargaining, and other means of advocating their interests.

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

#148

Post by DasIch » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 3:19 PM UTC

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #122

DasIch wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You know how much the consumer price of electricity has gone up in Germany? And I bet until last week the German "consumer" loved diesel powered cars (and the tax benefits) and ignored the down sides of targeting CO2 vs NOX

The consumer price of electricity has gone up but that's a complex problem with many reasons behind it. Abandoning nuclear energy is not the only reason and probably one of the least important ones.

Even if it were a reason, reversing again on this topic and not abandoning nuclear power would have no impact on prices by itself. New nuclear plants would have to be built which would take decades, even if you could find locations where such a plant would be tolerated.

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

#149

Post by nmrm2 » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 3:22 PM UTC

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #122

DasIch wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You know how much the consumer price of electricity has gone up in Germany? And I bet until last week the German "consumer" loved diesel powered cars (and the tax benefits) and ignored the down sides of targeting CO2 vs NOX

The parent's comment is accruate on the only important point here -- Germans don't like nuclear power.

The phase out of nuclear power isn't the result of a coalition trying to appease a radical fringe component. It's broadly reflective of public will in Germany.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries...

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

#150

Post by CWuestefeld » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 3:24 PM UTC

I'm concerned with the stability of the district borders. Because of the way this algorithm seems to like to slice through cities, it seems like minor changes in neighborhood density of a city is likely to significantly change the angle of the bisecting line, thus shifting large areas of the outlying region from one district to another.

This is bad for two reasons.

First, it seems a big weakness of democracy is voter ignorance. Throwing people repeatedly from one district to another, so they don't have time to learn the issues relevant to their district and the record of their representatives, will exacerbate the problem.

Second, the system can be gamed. It looks to me like approving or denying the construction of a large apartment complex near the center of a city can be used as a tool to push lines one direction or another. So approving that big apartment building in the city will increase population in that region, tending to tighten the angle made around it, thus freeing some voters from that district and pushing them into a neighboring one. Indeed, since the algorithm is recursive, this could have big follow-on effects subsequent iterations.