Gerrymandering again

[Tigers!]

Quite a number of years ago when the UK had a brief flirtation with introducing PR a joke when around about the possible unforeseen side effects of PR

There was an PR election with 4 candidates - A, B, C, D. But only 3 would be elected.
(note it does not matter which candidates won for this exercise)
Each candidate promised each elector 1 week paid holiday if they were elected.
Candidate A promised a holiday at Brighton
Candidate B promised a holiday in the Lakes District
Candidate C promised a holiday at Blackpool
Candidate D promised a holiday on the Isle of Wight
The election was duly held - Candidates A, C, D were elected.
The voters waited to hear when they would get their holidays and where (either Brighton, Blackpool, Isle of Wight).
Finally it was announced that the electors would get 5 days in Cardiff.

I don't get that joke.

Not a single elector got what they voted for.

PR involves much haggling and horse trading behind the scenes as often contradictory promises must be kept. Plus dividing the spoils of office is hard work. You may not get nor like what you elected.

So what? This sort of haggling can also happen inside of parties. Consider in the US House, back in 2021, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema vs. Build Back Better, and last year, not one but two nasty fights over who will be Speaker. A two-party system is supposed to be immune to such nastiness, right?

Never claimed that. I see so many who think that PR will solve all problems. It is not a magic potion. Just another way to determine who will get a seat when the music stops. (i was going to say gets a guernsey but that confuses too many people.)

Plus let us always remember that Hitler became Chancellor of Germany under the Weimar republic's PR system. (Before anyone jumps on me I am well aware that Hitler was selected rather elected). But his party was numerically the largest in the lower house. Horse trading can have unforeseen consequences.

So what? I've seen that as an argument against democracy in general.

PR all to often produces unstable coalitions ... (Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Israel)

As if that is typical of PR systems. I think that PR is good because it's a good way of sidelining extremists.

It is a possible way to side-line extremists but not fool proof.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

All the more reason to note that the only criteria to be used in determining electoral boundaries should be the number of electors.

As long as we ignore 200 or so years of history and what people in power have done, that will work out just fine.

Also, just looking at a state like Ohio, using number of electors doesn't particularly help. You can go from 3 D / 12 R to 6 D / 9 R +/-1. There is geography, economics, etc... that help make up reasonable districting.

Which is why I favor a mathematical approach.

Chop the state up into small blocks. Perhaps one address (for multi-family locations) or one physical block (every intersection divides them up) of houses. The boundaries of every block carry a weight that is defined by how closely associated it is with the next block. The boundary weight is based on how readily people move across it. Land that precludes the ready flow (protected land, rivers, unsafe land etc) has a boundary weight of zero. The weight to the continuation of our street is high (you can take one step to the next person's property), the weight to the neighbors behind us is somewhat lower (it would require going about a block and a half to reach them. Fences are concrete block and theirs is raised for a pool--unless somebody is on a ladder it's pretty much impossible to talk over the back fence.)

The proper redistricting is the arrangement that minimizes boundary weight while maintaining a required equality in population. Anyone can challenge the boundaries by showing a better solution. Obviously, it can be gamed somewhat by choosing weights--but require that no change can go into effect until after the election at least a year from now makes it very hard to do so.

Why complicate the exercise? You admit that weighting can be manipulated. Why then add any weighting at all?
Purely numeric. Each electorate has N +/- %N persons within.

Simply specifying the percentage range tells you nothing about where the boundaries should be.

And the reason for the weighting is the standard reason for districts--electing people from the same area. I'm measuring "area" by looking at how connected the chunks are. This will cause the dividing lines to favor those things that provide isolation--think of it as minimizing road miles rather than minimizing crow miles, except I'm trying to weight it towards what people would actually do. You have a street that's residential, then commercial, then residential, you will be a lot closer to the people on your side of the commercial block than those on the other side even if some of those on the other side are physically closer.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

PR all to often produces unstable coalitions ... (Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Israel)

As if that is typical of PR systems. I think that PR is good because it's a good way of sidelining extremists.

Disagree--PR systems are more prone to it. If you had a linear distribution of positions you would be right, but when different people have different objectives it can be worse. Suppose you have a system that ends up 45%/45%/10%. That 10% group effectively wields the same power as the 45% groups.

 

[Tigers!]

Why complicate the exercise? You admit that weighting can be manipulated. Why then add any weighting at all?
Purely numeric. Each electorate has N +/- %N persons within.

Simply specifying the percentage range tells you nothing about where the boundaries should be.

And the reason for the weighting is the standard reason for districts--electing people from the same area. I'm measuring "area" by looking at how connected the chunks are. This will cause the dividing lines to favor those things that provide isolation--think of it as minimizing road miles rather than minimizing crow miles, except I'm trying to weight it towards what people would actually do. You have a street that's residential, then commercial, then residential, you will be a lot closer to the people on your side of the commercial block than those on the other side even if some of those on the other side are physically closer.

Sounds like you are referring to population density in your districts. That does not have to be a problem unless you want all districts to be the approx. same size. If you do not wish to have same size districts then do not concern your self with density.
Electoral divisions in Australia
Largest electorate in Australia (and the world)
Smallest electorate in Australia
Size does not matter

 

[Worldtraveller]

The only real restriction to how we limit voting district size in the US has to be that they respect (probably outdated, mostly meaningless) state boundaries.

The situation is analogous to healthcare. We have multiple successful models that do what it is intended to do, but (almost exclusively GOP) states refuse to implement it because it would actually make selecting representatives more fair. If you look at which states have implemented a non-partisan, algorithmically controlled or otherwise, districting system, literally every single one of them leans strongly democratic. So once more, both sides are NOT the same.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why complicate the exercise? You admit that weighting can be manipulated. Why then add any weighting at all?
Purely numeric. Each electorate has N +/- %N persons within.

Simply specifying the percentage range tells you nothing about where the boundaries should be.

And the reason for the weighting is the standard reason for districts--electing people from the same area. I'm measuring "area" by looking at how connected the chunks are. This will cause the dividing lines to favor those things that provide isolation--think of it as minimizing road miles rather than minimizing crow miles, except I'm trying to weight it towards what people would actually do. You have a street that's residential, then commercial, then residential, you will be a lot closer to the people on your side of the commercial block than those on the other side even if some of those on the other side are physically closer.

Sounds like you are referring to population density in your districts. That does not have to be a problem unless you want all districts to be the approx. same size. If you do not wish to have same size districts then do not concern your self with density.
Electoral divisions in Australia
Largest electorate in Australia (and the world)
Smallest electorate in Australia
Size does not matter

I am simply assuming the status quo--districts are required to be approximately equal. To do otherwise would mean some people have a smaller vote than others.

 

[Tigers!]

The Australian Electoral Commission has released the new Commonwealth electoral boundaries, (a review of the current boundaries is done after every Commonwealth election and before the next one). The states of Victoria and Western Australia have the most boundary changes. The Guardian Aust. has a primer on these changes.

For the US people these change are do without politician's or parties input. The parties, political can comment but they do not have any say in the creation of boundaries. You would be wise to consider such an apolitical body for yourselves. It would reduce along of argy-bargy and CO₂ producing hot air.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

PR all to often produces unstable coalitions ... (Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Israel)

As if that is typical of PR systems. I think that PR is good because it's a good way of sidelining extremists.

Disagree--PR systems are more prone to it. If you had a linear distribution of positions you would be right, but when different people have different objectives it can be worse. Suppose you have a system that ends up 45%/45%/10%. That 10% group effectively wields the same power as the 45% groups.

As they should. Every single vote should have value; the same value. With first past the post their votes become worthless. Speaking of, in FPT, how would that 45% equal votes be resolved? Presumably would actually be something like 97,003 votes vs 97,001 votes, with 97,003 winning, and the about 20,000 that make up the 10% not having a say (except in the negative sense of not providing votes to either of the other candidates).

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Edit to above. The 97,003 could be the extremist candidate, and by including the other 10% of votes he could lose instead of winning.

 

[lpetrich]

Proposed Texas GOP platform would lock Democrats out of state office | The Texas Tribune

Republican Party of Texas delegates voted Saturday on a platform that called for new laws to require the Bible to be taught in public schools and a constitutional amendment that would require statewide elected leaders to win the popular vote in a majority of Texas counties.

Other proposed planks of the 50-page platform included proclamations that “abortion is not healthcare it is homicide”; that gender-transition treatment for children is “child abuse”; calls to reverse recent name changes to military bases and “publicly honor the southern heroes”; support for declaring gold and silver as legal tender; and demands that the U.S. government disclose “all pertinent information and knowledge” of UFOs.

Looking at  List of counties in Texas I added up the populations of the more populous and the less populous halves of the counties, and the less populous half is about 3% of the state's total. I also found that half the state's population is in the 7 most populous counties.

So that is grotesque gerrymandering.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

SCOTUS rulings on this stuff is so arbitrary, it'd be hard to tell if they'd object to this. It wouldn't be racially based, but is it so over-the-top that they (well two of the conservative justices) say you can't apportion senate seats like that. All things being equal, there is nothing, in general, in the Constitution that would forbid it, other than the spirit of the law.

 

[Swammerdami]

Here are some arguments against districting, followed by a possible solution.

• Some "gerrymandering" is regarded as good! For example, politicians or judges have ordered a district to be drawn specially to ensure there is at least one majority-Hispanic district.
• Originally, districts were intended to unite similar people and to minimize their travel time to meet their Representative. This matters less in the age of high-speed travel and Internet. Grouping constituents by Facebook groups almost makes more sense now!
• I'm not sure "non-partisan" commissions are plausible in today's hyper-polarized Amerika. What does "non-partisan" even mean? That only 50% of a body thinks the 2020 election was stolen?
• Representatives serve an ombudsman role. Perhaps that function should be split off from that of legislators, and assigned to state-appointed ombuds or even NGOs. That wouldn't be worse than the present pay-to-play system.
• The first-past-the-post and two-party systems in the U.S. have devolved into a primary-election system which has drowned Congress with right-wing extremists. This may be a major reason for today's hyper-partisanship.
• Computer-drawn maps may avoid the worst of deliberate gerrymandering, but why not look for a better approach altogether?

Selecting some legislators from "party lists" is one way to improve the system. But here's another compromise between single-representative districting and proportional representation: Make the districts 3 or 4 times as large and admit the 3 or 4 top vote-getters to the Legislature. I do NOT claim this is a perfect panacea. Among other problems, the choice between 3- and 4-member districts may make a huge difference. I mention the approach just as a starting-point for consideration.

 

[lpetrich]

I looked at the map, and many of the counties look similar in size. So I extracted the numbers and looked at them. They are mostly around 1000 square miles each, but with a few outliers, to as low as 149 mi^2 to as high as 6193 mi^2. Their populations vary from 43 to 4,835,125.

 

[lpetrich]

Here are some arguments against districting, followed by a possible solution.

...
Some "gerrymandering" is regarded as good! For example, politicians or judges have ordered a district to be drawn specially to ensure there is at least one majority-Hispanic district.

That's some-of-each districting, and it aims to provide some approximation of proportional representation. It is simpler to have multimember districts with proportional representation.

Originally, districts were intended to unite similar people and to minimize their travel time to meet their Representative. This matters less in the age of high-speed travel and Internet. Grouping constituents by Facebook groups almost makes more sense now!

I've never heard of that one before, but I've found this: FairVote - Congressional District History

This arrangement changed with an apportionment act in 1842 (5 Stat. 491). This act set the House membership at 223 members and contained a requirement for single-member districts. It stated that representatives "should be elected by districts composed of contiguous territory equal in number to the number of representatives to which said state may be entitled, no one district electing more than one representative." Thus single-member districts were officially instituted by Congress.

The impetus for the requirement was partisan fairness. Andrew Hacker explains in his 1964 book Congressional Districting:

Many of the states, therefore, elected all of their representatives on a statewide, or at-large, basis. What happened, of course, was that in states where one party had a comfortable statewide majority, it carried the entire congressional delegation. As a remedy for this "winner take all" arrangement, the Apportionment Act of 1842 was passed by the Congress.... The 1842 Act was a major step toward
proportional representation to the distribution of votes [for the two major parties].

So single-member districts are for proportionality, at least approximately.

 

[Swammerdami]

So single-member districts are for proportionality, at least approximately.

You snipped and ignore my version of multi-member districts which IMPROVES on proportionality,

 

[lpetrich]

I'm not sure "non-partisan" commissions are plausible in today's hyper-polarized Amerika. What does "non-partisan" even mean? That only 50% of a body thinks the 2020 election was stolen?

Independent and Advisory Citizen Redistricting Commissions - Common Cause

Some of them have some Democrats, some Republicans, and some unaffiliated people.

Representatives serve an ombudsman role. Perhaps that function should be split off from that of legislators, and assigned to state-appointed ombuds or even NGOs. That wouldn't be worse than the present pay-to-play system.

???

The first-past-the-post and two-party systems in the U.S. have devolved into a primary-election system which has drowned Congress with right-wing extremists. This may be a major reason for today's hyper-partisanship.

Mostly asymmetrical - far right without an equivalent far left.

Computer-drawn maps may avoid the worst of deliberate gerrymandering, but why not look for a better approach altogether?

Sure, but one is dependent on the map-drawing algorithm. Someone might try to skew it to produce gerrymandered results.

 

[lpetrich]

So single-member districts are for proportionality, at least approximately.

You snipped and ignore my version of multi-member districts which IMPROVES on proportionality,

That's correct. Single-member districts are not very proportional, but they are better than general ticket or bloc voting.

General ticket: vote for an entire slate of candidates in single-winner fashion.

Bloc vote: vote for at most as many candidates as there are seats to fill. In a partisan vote, that acts much like general ticket.

 

[Swammerdami]

So single-member districts are for proportionality, at least approximately.

You snipped and ignore my version of multi-member districts which IMPROVES on proportionality,

That's correct. Single-member districts are not very proportional, but they are better than general ticket or bloc voting.

General ticket: vote for an entire slate of candidates in single-winner fashion.

Bloc vote: vote for at most as many candidates as there are seats to fill. In a partisan vote, that acts much like general ticket.

Obviously my post was unclear. I planned on giving each voter a SINGLE vote despite that MULTIPLE members would be chosen.

View my proposal as unpolished -- (in fact it occurred to me just a few hours ago) -- and definitely in need of improvement.

 

[lpetrich]

Selecting some legislators from "party lists" is one way to improve the system. But here's another compromise between single-representative districting and proportional representation: Make the districts 3 or 4 times as large and admit the 3 or 4 top vote-getters to the Legislature. I do NOT claim this is a perfect panacea. Among other problems, the choice between 3- and 4-member districts may make a huge difference. I mention the approach just as a starting-point for consideration.

Obviously my post was unclear. I planned on giving each voter a SINGLE vote despite that MULTIPLE members would be chosen.

View my proposal as unpolished -- (in fact it occurred to me just a few hours ago) -- and definitely in need of improvement.

You reinvented  Single non-transferable vote It can produce proportional results.

 

[Tigers!]

I looked at the map, and many of the counties look similar in size. So I extracted the numbers and looked at them. They are mostly around 1000 square miles each, but with a few outliers, to as low as 149 mi^2 to as high as 6193 mi^2. Their populations vary from 43 to 4,835,125.

Why such variance in electorate size? That is a problem there. Such a range gives the 43 voters too much say compared to the 4,835,125.
Surely the aim should be for each electorate to be as numerically close as possible to N +/= %N where N is to be determined.