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Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm

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

#161

Post by dragonwriter »

BurningFrog wrote: post #133
dragonwriter wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No line drawing method on single member districts does that, and the best way to get laws which represents e people effectively is by assuring better proportionality. This had, in fact, been studied quite a bit, see, e.g., Arend Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy . Mucking around with variations on how our by whom lines are drawn for single-member, plurality or majority runoff districts and thinking that that had some…

"Perfect enemy of the good" fallacy, if that's a thing. Gerrymandering can add ~30% of representatives for the party controlling it, so changing it to a party method does improve things a lot, even if it is arguably very far from perfect.

> "Perfect enemy of the good" fallacy, if that's a thing.

Its only a thing when the "perfect" is not a real alternative.

Systems that produce more proportional representation than any means of line drawing in single-member winner-take-all districts are real alternatives that are well-established in the real world.

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

#162

Post by dragonwriter »

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.

Breaking the link between the electorate and individual candidates/officeholders is true of party list methods which aren't the only way of achieving PR. STV in small multimember districts is just as candidate centered as FPTP methods (arguably moreso, in that there remains candidate choice within the same path preferences at the general elections.)

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

#163

Post by dragonwriter »

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.

You aren't describing PR, you are describing party list systems, which are one method of achieving PR. Single Transferrable Vote in multimember districts also achieved proportionality of representation, but involves directly voting for candidates. MMP mixes elements of FPTP and party list proportional. And there are a bunch of other mechanisms for achieving PR.

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

#164

Post by dragonwriter »

LordKano wrote: post #124
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 kind of like approval voting but there's one big problem. How to we enact it? I also see a small problem. Party representatives stand outside of polling places and present voters with lists of party endorsed candidates. People who currently vote solely on the basis of party will just approve only candidates who are on the party provided list. The two major parties control virtually every legislative body in the cou…

> How to we enact it?

(And this applies to any electoral reform that there is resistance to by incumbents, not just approval voting, which I don't particular prefer.)

In states with citizen initiative processes that bypass incumbent office holders, by that method. Elsewhere, by building support in the electorate and then running candidates on a platform of doing that, and keeping organized in the electorate to hold those candidates accountable.

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

#165

Post by vacri »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #120
vacri wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No, the UK doesn't have PR, but it's a different system to the US. From what you're arguing, the US would be better off switching to their system. If you want to do it properly, you should probably import some Germanic hereditary figurehead - perhaps Schwarzenegger could start the US royal line?

Still, I like you completely sidestepped the question of how 'stability' matches up with having a civil war that was one of the bloodiest in history. You're not actually interested in finding the best form of government; you're only interested in defending your own.

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

#166

Post by JDDunn9 »

panglott wrote: post #147
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.

Not everyone has to address Congress. As long as each valid viewpoint has at least one advocate, I trust people could figure out the best option. Less bargaining means fewer riders and pork, which is a good thing. I'm fine if only the best ~10% of Congress wrote/debated laws and the rest simply voted.

Also, remember we are comparing against the current Congress, which only represents the wealthiest among us. Pretty low bar.

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

#167

Post by greggyb »

saalweachter wrote: post #127
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.

Fun fact: there is actually no such thing as ZIP code boundaries. ZIP codes are actually based on delivery routes: your ZIP code is the post office your mail carrier leaves from. ZIP codes will not actually respect community boundaries: if a town lies between two post offices, it is frequently more efficient for mail to be delivered by carriers from multiple post offices. Moreover, not every address in the US receive…

>Moreover, not every address in the US receives home delivery. If the post office does not have a delivery route going past your home address, you can instead get a post office box from whichever post office you find most convenient. What happens to packages addressed to those street addresses is ... complex.

Emphasis mine. Would you care to expand? I'm interested in complex things.

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

#168

Post by dragonwriter »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #130
saalweachter wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: there is actually no such thing as ZIP code boundaries. ZIP codes are actually based on delivery routes: your ZIP code is the post office your mail carrier leaves from. ZIP codes will not actually respect community boundaries: if a town lies between two post offices, it is frequently more efficient for mail to be delivered by carriers from multiple post offices. Moreover, not every address in the US receive…

Ok I wondered about this. Our local village has no mail delivery; everybody in town has to have a PO box. I thought Federal mail delivery was a given thing, like a right. How can the town just decide to blow it off?

> I thought Federal mail delivery was a given thing, like a right.

Its not. Establishing post office and post roads is a Constitutional power of the federal government, but providing postal service to every building (or even just every dwelling, or, for that matter, providing any postal service at all) is not an obligation of the Federal government, and there is no entitlement to postal service.

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

#169

Post by dragonwriter »

chippy wrote: post #113
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.

> The algorithm uses US Census data, so perhaps using county boundaries would be ideal?

Counties are too big to be atomic units in any algorithm that assigns districts that would be meet the requirements for reasonably equal size districts.

> I'm not american, but I imagine both census and zipline boundaries as honouring geographic and community boundaries.

ZIP codes don't do either particularly well, and census blocks might approximately do one or the other (not always the same for different boundaries) but they can't consistently do both, since the two can conflict.

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

#170

Post by eru »

tfinniga wrote: post #116
eru wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

Yes, that's true. But with any luck the weights will have less knobs to turn, ie less information, than drawing lines.

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

We just need to avoid the worst government.

Or perhaps the Americans can just look around the world to see how other countries are drawing their voting districts, and compare what works and what doesn't. (Shouldn't federalisms make that kind of experimenting work inside the US alone, too?)

In any case, there's a more interesting simple technocratic fix to try: count ballot papers that tick more than one candidate as a vote for each of the ticked candidates.

This way you can vote for the lesser evil and who you actually want.

(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting)

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