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

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

#171

Post by Turing_Machine » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 2:24 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #165

Turing_Machine wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

"No, the UK doesn't have PR, but it's a different system to the US."

Nice attempt to shift the goalposts. Not going to work.

Stability isn't the only goal, but it's an important one.

"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.

Britain had a nasty civil war also.

"You're not actually interested in finding the best form of government; "

No, because I don't believe that there is a "best" form of government. Attempting to immanentize the eschaton usually (always) winds up with a few million people dead.

I'm interested in avoiding forms of government that are demonstrably bad, based on past performance.

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

#172

Post by specialist » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 2:28 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #159

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…

> 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. Maybe, maybe not. Most of those don't fundamentally have to be single-winner elected things, e.g., executive positions don't have to be single-winner systems; multiseat executives do exist, after all -- even…

IRV isn't much worse on any of those...

I was an active IRV proponent. Then I figured out they require computerized tabulation (for non trivial elections, such as my jurisdiction) and are infeasible to audit.

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

#173

Post by specialist » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 2:30 AM UTC

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…

Low hanging fruit.

Join your local party and sneak it into your platform.

Use it whenever it makes sense. I used approval voting for feature planning and triaging bugs.

Our study group uses it to choose dinner.

Etc.

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

#174

Post by BurningFrog » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 5:57 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #161

BurningFrog wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Well, proportional representation is mathematically and theoretically possible in the US, but culturally and politically as likely as adopting Chinese as official language. That won't change for decades at least.

But changing how districts are drawn actually does happen in this country. California degerrymanderified their process a few years ago.

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

#175

Post by schoen » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 11:00 AM 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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrenched_clause

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

#176

Post by saalweachter » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 12:10 PM UTC

greggyb wrote: post #167

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…

>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.

In general, the US Post Office will attempt to deliver any unambiguously addressed parcel.

Some of the things that can happen if you address a parcel to a non-delivery address include:

  * delivery to a PO Box owned by the addressee
  * delivery to the physically closest post office to that address
  * delivery to the routing facility serving that address

This is especially a problem when a confused business demands street addresses instead of PO box numbers. Your parcel may end up somewhere you don't know about.

Street addresses in the US primarily exist for the use of emergency services, to ensure that it is easy for an ambulance or fire truck to find every house. They aren't even the primary key on land in most of the country; usually, the county or state will use a separate lot number which is independent of the road system to identity land for tax or other purposes. Prior to the 9-1-1 emergency system, the post office just used "rural route # / box #" to identify rural addresses.

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

#177

Post by greggyb » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 3:39 PM UTC

saalweachter wrote: post #176

greggyb wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

In general, the US Post Office will attempt to deliver any unambiguously addressed parcel. Some of the things that can happen if you address a parcel to a non-delivery address include: * delivery to a PO Box owned by the addressee * delivery to the physically closest post office to that address * delivery to the routing facility serving that address This is especially a problem when a confused business demands street…

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

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

#178

Post by kevinpet » Sun, Oct 11, 2015, 4:38 AM UTC

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #39

kevinpet wrote: post #33

I think this is fascinating even if it will never happen. It's important to keep in mind the nominal and actual result of human drawn district boundaries ("gerrymandering" is a pejorative). In theory, human drawn district boundaries can create districts which are more homogenous so that, for example, a state with a few representatives and a few defined geographic or political divisions can divide things up in a way t…

Contrary to one popular misconception about the practice, the point of gerrymandering isn't to draw yourself a collection of overwhelmingly safe seats. Rather, it's to give your opponents a small number of safe seats, while drawing yourself a larger number of seats that are not quite as safe, but that you can expect to win comfortably. That almost sounds like a tautology.

Not at all. The first thing people think of when they first learn the idea of gerrymandering is "draw districts that my party will never lose". In fact, the opposite is true. You want to concentrate the opposing party in a small number of districts, which then become overwhelmingly safe. But the seeming benefit of overwhelmingly safe seats is outweighed by the benefit of having a small advantage in a larger number of seats.