Is Gerrymandering Unconstitutional?

[Kharakov]

What turnabout?

Seriously? Dismal tries a juvenile slam against Bronzeage by saying "they'll cover that in 3rd grade," I respond IN KIND with "I take it you're still in 2nd," and you honestly cannot see how the phrase "turnabout is fair play" applies?

And you wonder why I disparage your apparent intellectual acumen based on the content of your posts.

As a precocious fetus, I can say that you look like a bunch of 2nd graders who act like you're still in kindergarten.

 

[Davka]

Seriously? Dismal tries a juvenile slam against Bronzeage by saying "they'll cover that in 3rd grade," I respond IN KIND with "I take it you're still in 2nd," and you honestly cannot see how the phrase "turnabout is fair play" applies?

And you wonder why I disparage your apparent intellectual acumen based on the content of your posts.

As a precocious fetus, I can say that you look like a bunch of 2nd graders who act like you're still in kindergarten.

Oh yeah? So's your mom!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Why would urban vs rural be relevant? If each district gets X number of voters then a ten square mile urban district should be as reliably democratic as a thousand square mile rural district would be republican if the districts are drawn up solely on the basis of population and not taking demographics into account.

It thus has everything to do with how voters are distributed in urban, suburban and rural settings.

It does? Not in Ohio. It is how best you can cut and carve Northern Ohio to reduce the number of Democrats in Congress.

District 4
District 9
District 11

Gerrymandering is what allows 5, 7, 14, and 16 to be Republican seats. Entire Ohio setup.

 

[maxparrish]

It thus has everything to do with how voters are distributed in urban, suburban and rural settings.

It does? Not in Ohio. It is how best you can cut and carve Northern Ohio to reduce the number of Democrats in Congress.

District 4
District 9
District 11

Gerrymandering is what allows 5, 7, 14, and 16 to be Republican seats. Entire Ohio setup.

I see that this 'gerrymandering' insures two African-American representatives...as the courts seem to favor. Why do you favor white people?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It does? Not in Ohio. It is how best you can cut and carve Northern Ohio to reduce the number of Democrats in Congress.

District 4
District 9
District 11

Gerrymandering is what allows 5, 7, 14, and 16 to be Republican seats. Entire Ohio setup.

I see that this 'gerrymandering' insures two African-American representatives...as the courts seem to favor. Why do you favor white people?

Please, elaborate.

 

[Bronzeage]

If it was Bronzeage who came back with that line it would have been understandable.

And you wonder why I disparage your apparent intellectual acumen based on the content of your posts.

Because you are a mean spirited person?

On the contrary. Davka is a fount of human goodness and well recognized as a shrewd judge of character.

That said(quite snarkily, I will concede), we should rejoin the discussion about gerrymandering and how the legal process which regulates the process of drawing voting district lines does or does not conform to Constitutional standards. It is my wish everyone would be more precise in their terminology, so we won't have distractions from the real matter.

 

[maxparrish]

Many folks of the "scientific" party seem unusually anti-intellectual (and in denial) when it comes to absorbing the academic studies consistent message - intentional Republican gerrymandering has not been the primary cause of the disparity between total votes and the actual percentage of party representation in the house (or state legislatures).

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jowei/florida.pdf

While conventional wisdom holds that partisan bias in U.S. legislative
elections results from intentional partisan and racial gerrymandering,
we demonstrate that substantial bias can also emerge from patterns
of human geography. We show that in many states, Democrats are
inefficiently concentrated in large cities and smaller industrial agglomerations
such that they can expect to win fewer than 50% of the
seats when they win 50% of the votes. To measure this ‘‘unintentional
gerrymandering,’’ we use automated districting simulations based on
precinct-level 2000 presidential election results in several states. Our
results illustrate a strong relationship between the geographic concentration
of Democratic voters and electoral bias favoring Republicans.

 

[Derec]

Entire Ohio setup.

I did not say gerrymandering doesn't happen (and as maxparrish pointed out, there can be different beneficiaries). My point is that the single member district setup can lead to significant distortions of number of seats won vs. popular vote due to breakdown of votes in individual districts and that can happen even when districts are drawn in a neutral,. non-partisan way.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Entire Ohio setup.

I did not say gerrymandering doesn't happen (and as maxparrish pointed out, there can be different beneficiaries). My point is that the single member district setup can lead to significant distortions of number of seats won vs. popular vote due to breakdown of votes in individual districts and that can happen even when districts are drawn in a neutral,. non-partisan way.

Yes, but that isn't what the thread is about. We are talking about willful districting that is designed to give an absurd edge to one party, like in Ohio, where Republicans have triple the seats of Democrats... in a state Obama won twice.

 

[maxparrish]

I did not say gerrymandering doesn't happen (and as maxparrish pointed out, there can be different beneficiaries). My point is that the single member district setup can lead to significant distortions of number of seats won vs. popular vote due to breakdown of votes in individual districts and that can happen even when districts are drawn in a neutral,. non-partisan way.

Yes, but that isn't what the thread is about. We are talking about willful districting that is designed to give an absurd edge to one party, like in Ohio, where Republicans have triple the seats of Democrats... in a state Obama won twice.

But how "absurd" is it if such would occur anyway, under a "neutral" method, such as making all districts around communities of interest, or with minimal perimeters for the area encompassed? According to the prior links, such might only shift 6 to 8 seats NATIONALLY (and I doubt Ohio has most of those shifts).

Frankly, from the Ohio map link you (?) provided it seems pretty obvious that the various communities of interest are represented, but that blue communities are highly concentrated. Such is the result of geography based representation.

(PS that does not mean you could not Gerrymander for blues - you could, for example, "pie slice" with an urban area at the center and pie wedges coming out to encompass vast rural areas...)

 

[Davka]

Yes, but that isn't what the thread is about. We are talking about willful districting that is designed to give an absurd edge to one party, like in Ohio, where Republicans have triple the seats of Democrats... in a state Obama won twice.

But how "absurd" is it if such would occur anyway, under a "neutral" method, such as making all districts around communities of interest, or with minimal perimeters for the area encompassed? According to the prior links, such might only shift 6 to 8 seats NATIONALLY (and I doubt Ohio has most of those shifts).

Districts should be created according to two parameters, and two alone: Population must be within legally defined limits, and the district should be as compact as possible. According to a Duke University study, this would have produced dramatically different results in the 2012 North Carolina election:

During the 2012 elections in North Carolina, Republicans took nine of the state’s 13 U.S. House seats although 51 percent of the two-party vote went to Democratic candidates.

The gerrymandering that led to these results isn’t unique to North Carolina or any specific party. Both Democrats and Republicans have used it for political advantage over the years. However, new technology makes it possible to draw partisan districts with increasing precision.

“North Carolina’s 12th and 4th congressional districts in particular look a little crazy,” said study co-author and Duke senior Christy Vaughn, who is originally from Taylorsville, N.C.

Vaughn and Duke math professor Jonathan Mattingly attempted to quantify how gerrymandering actually affects recent election outcomes.

They used a statistical algorithm to randomly redraw the boundaries of North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts. The model produced thousands of versions of the redrawn map. All of them were based only on the legal requirements of redistricting, ensuring the districts represented roughly equal numbers of voters and were as geographically compact as possible, without accounting for race or political affiliation.

Next the researchers re-ran the 2012 U.S. House election on a computer and calculated what the outcome would have been for each new version of the map.

”If someone voted for a particular candidate in the 2012 election and one of our redrawn maps assigned where they live to a new congressional district, we assumed that they would still vote for the same political party,” Vaughn said.

After re-running the election 100 times, with a randomly drawn nonpartisan map each time, the average simulated election result was 7 or 8 U.S. House seats for the Democrats and 5 or 6 for Republicans. The maximum number of Republican seats that emerged from any of the simulations was eight. The actual outcome of the election -- four Democratic representatives and nine Republicans – did not occur in any of the simulations.

Source

 

[maxparrish]

I finally figured out how Higgins would like to 'redistrict'...

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yes, but that isn't what the thread is about. We are talking about willful districting that is designed to give an absurd edge to one party, like in Ohio, where Republicans have triple the seats of Democrats... in a state Obama won twice.

But how "absurd" is it if such would occur anyway, under a "neutral" method, such as making all districts around communities of interest, or with minimal perimeters for the area encompassed? According to the prior links, such might only shift 6 to 8 seats NATIONALLY (and I doubt Ohio has most of those shifts).

And I doubt those prior links are correct. Ohio should be closer to 50-50. 8 to 8, 7 to 9, not 4 to 12.

Frankly, from the Ohio map link you (?) provided it seems pretty obvious that the various communities of interest are represented, but that blue communities are highly concentrated. Such is the result of geography based representation.

That keeps on being repeated because it seems like a popular buzz phrase to those that support gerrymandering. Why in the world in Ohio, is Toledo and Cleveland rep'd by the same person? The district isn't even continguous! Then District 4 is nothing but a fat snake gobbling up just enough Democrats to help bordering districts near cities go red as well.

(PS that does not mean you could not Gerrymander for blues - you could, for example, "pie slice" with an urban area at the center and pie wedges coming out to encompass vast rural areas...)

And in no way should that be allowed either. Gerrymandering is a loss for the people. That some want to defend it is an absurdity!

I finally figured out how Higgins would like to 'redistrict'...

Those would probably be Republican districts. But I like the convex polygons. The best part of all of this is that Ohio votes for Obama, yet only 1 in 4 House seats goes to the Democrats. Any partisan blind person will look at that and say "Something is wrong there." The not so partisan blind will try hard to defend why what is wrong isn't actually wrong, and why it is the fault of the losers.

 

[zorq]

Does anyone remember the 2003 Texas redistricting debaccle When the Democrats in the Texas State House ran away to Oklahoma to prevent the Republicans from gerrymandering the district lines in Texas. The Republicans eventually got the districts they wanted and picked up 10 representatives in Congress the next election.

In the 2004 Election Republicans held 21 seats, Democrats 11. Only 56 percent of the population of Texas voted for Republicans that year but they earned 66 percent of the congressional seats.

Look at how they redistricted the Democratic stronghold Austin to dilute it with the surrounding rural areas.

The distance between Austin and McAllen is 312 miles. Look at that Orange District! Needless to say, Austin Texas, the most liberal city in Texas is represented exclusively by Republican representatives.

 

[maxparrish]

But how "absurd" is it if such would occur anyway, under a "neutral" method, such as making all districts around communities of interest, or with minimal perimeters for the area encompassed? According to the prior links, such might only shift 6 to 8 seats NATIONALLY (and I doubt Ohio has most of those shifts).

Districts should be created according to two parameters, and two alone: Population must be within legally defined limits, and the district should be as compact as possible. According to a Duke University study, this would have produced dramatically different results in the 2012 North Carolina election:

During the 2012 elections in North Carolina, Republicans took nine of the state’s 13 U.S. House seats although 51 percent of the two-party vote went to Democratic candidates.

The gerrymandering that led to these results isn’t unique to North Carolina or any specific party. Both Democrats and Republicans have used it for political advantage over the years. However, new technology makes it possible to draw partisan districts with increasing precision.

“North Carolina’s 12th and 4th congressional districts in particular look a little crazy,” said study co-author and Duke senior Christy Vaughn, who is originally from Taylorsville, N.C.

Vaughn and Duke math professor Jonathan Mattingly attempted to quantify how gerrymandering actually affects recent election outcomes.

They used a statistical algorithm to randomly redraw the boundaries of North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts. The model produced thousands of versions of the redrawn map. All of them were based only on the legal requirements of redistricting, ensuring the districts represented roughly equal numbers of voters and were as geographically compact as possible, without accounting for race or political affiliation.

Next the researchers re-ran the 2012 U.S. House election on a computer and calculated what the outcome would have been for each new version of the map.

”If someone voted for a particular candidate in the 2012 election and one of our redrawn maps assigned where they live to a new congressional district, we assumed that they would still vote for the same political party,” Vaughn said.

After re-running the election 100 times, with a randomly drawn nonpartisan map each time, the average simulated election result was 7 or 8 U.S. House seats for the Democrats and 5 or 6 for Republicans. The maximum number of Republican seats that emerged from any of the simulations was eight. The actual outcome of the election -- four Democratic representatives and nine Republicans – did not occur in any of the simulations.

Source

That may or may not be true of NC, but it does run contrary to the prior national elections analysis as previously linked to. While individual states may have varied, the cumulative off-set seems minor compared to factors of concentration.

Computer runs of proposed redistricting is as common as leaves on a tree, and most of them have been produced to satisfy court challenges that stress several factors, including communities of interest. However, even for a State study, and without digging deeper, the Duke study does not quite passes the smell test. Consider the claim:

We introduce a non-partisan probability distribution on congressional redistricting of North Carolina which emphasizes the equal partition of the population and the compactness of districts. When random districts are drawn and the results of the 2012 election were re-tabulated under the drawn districtings, we find that an average of 7.6 democratic representatives are elected. 95% of the randomly sampled redistrictings produced between 6 and 9 Democrats. Both of these facts are in stark contrast with the 4 Democrats elected in the 2012 elections with the same vote counts. This brings into serious question the idea that such elections represent the "will of the people." It underlines the ability of redistricting to undermine the democratic process, while on the face allowing democracy to proceed.

And:

The results of this procedure for our principle model are given by the histogram given in Figure 2 which shows fraction of different numbers of Democratic representatives obtained by sampling about 100 random redistrictings from our random distribution. This distribution gives a quantitative measure of the “will of the people” in a given election. Those in search of a single number might well take the mean (7.6 Democratic representatives) or the median (7 Democratic representatives). However, the entirety of the distribution gives more information. Over 50% of the samples produce either 7 or 8 Democratic representative. All of the samples produce between 6 and 9 Democratic representatives. These results should be compared with the current North Carolina house delegation which has only 4 Democratic representatives.

So how is it in a 'randomly drawn' map that a mere 51 percent of the vote (your number) becomes an average of 7.6 Democratic seats and GOP average of 5.4? Given that the difference is razor thin two percent, one might suppose an average simulation outcome closer to 6.7 Democratic seats (and 6.3 for Republicans). In fact in their simulation it is came out just as likely for Democrats to get 8 seats as 7 seats, and even greater odds that they would get 9 seats rather than only 6 seems very odd - this comes from a mere 51% vote?

There could be several explanations. First, it is possible that GOP voters are more 'spread out' and that larger districts to encompass them don't meet the algorithm for compactness - that is, this "neutral" criteria actually gerrymanders against Republicans. The second possibility is that their assumptions regarding a voter voting for the same party in a redrawn district with a different candidate may be in error. Voters, for example, do vote on other basis than party (such as incumbency, religion, ethnic/racial tribe). And, of course, the last possibility is that their methods (or math) is flawed.

Finally, there is a bit of begging the question by the authors (and you). Who says that compactness and pinpoint accuracy in population divisions are only of interest? Compactness is appealing because it avoids some of the absurd gerrymandering; on the other hand it also makes sense to take into account community interests. How can one reflect "the will of the people" if the 51 percent are part of a winner take all? What happens to the will of the 49%?

And such communities of interest often span party divisions. In California they include agriculture, environmental concerns, ethnic community, hi-tech industry, etc. Should not the lives and fortunes of those folks be included if practical?

 

[lpetrich]

This strikes me as an abrogation of my Constitutional right to proportionate representation.

The problem are single member districts and that cannot be changed without a constitutional amendment.

I've read The United States Constitution - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net It nowhere mandates either proportional representation in general or single-member districts. Nowhere. At least as far as I can tell.

It mandates proportional representation for states in the House of Representatives, but that's as close as it comes.

One could look at how courts have interpreted it, but that may take a lot of searching, and I'd have to have an idea of good search terms in law sites.

 

[maxparrish]

A recent study revealed that the last 4 elections - 2010, 2012, and 2014 - showed the same pattern across the nation: The majority of Americans voted for Democrats, but because of gerrymandered districts, the great majority of seats were 'won" by Republicans. This is not only true on a national level, it is also the case on a state level in nearly every single swing state.

The result is that we no longer have proportional representation in this country. If we did, the House and Senate would be far closer to a 50/50 split today. Instead, the widespread creation of safe seats have not only given the Republicans an unearned majority, it has made the primaries the only election that really matters. The result is that traditional Republicans are running against far-right Republicans, creating an extremist legislature.

Now That's What I Call Gerrymandering!
Gerrymanders, Part 1: Busting the both-sides-do-it myth

In personal terms, this means that - even though I live in the most liberal area in North Carolina - my vote was rendered null and void by the careful creation of safe Republican seats via dilution of the Democrat vote. Asheville, a college town and a hippie mecca, is represented in both the State House and in D.C. by Republican legislators.

This strikes me as an abrogation of my Constitutional right to proportionate representation. In fact, it strikes me as so blatantly in opposition to the spirit and letter of the Constitution, that I am considering asking the ACLU to take up a suit against the State of North Carolina. I would like top take this idea to a Constitutional scholar at a local University, and ask for help in crafting my initial argument. But even before taking this step, I thought I'd ask folks here what they think. If you were to approach a Constitutional scholar for help in suing the State, how would you word your verbal argument?

By the way, in regards to NC and your complaints about proportionality and the unfair Republicans.

In 2010 the Republicans/Democratic Split was 6(R) and 7 (D) for 1,440,913 (R) vs. 1,204,635 (D) votes. In other words, the Democrats only got 45.4 percent of the vote but the majority of seats. Now the Democrats only got (2014) 45 percent of the vote and lost several seats.

Sounds like whose ox is gored?

 

[Davka]

A recent study revealed that the last 4 elections - 2010, 2012, and 2014 - showed the same pattern across the nation: The majority of Americans voted for Democrats, but because of gerrymandered districts, the great majority of seats were 'won" by Republicans. This is not only true on a national level, it is also the case on a state level in nearly every single swing state.

The result is that we no longer have proportional representation in this country. If we did, the House and Senate would be far closer to a 50/50 split today. Instead, the widespread creation of safe seats have not only given the Republicans an unearned majority, it has made the primaries the only election that really matters. The result is that traditional Republicans are running against far-right Republicans, creating an extremist legislature.

Now That's What I Call Gerrymandering!
Gerrymanders, Part 1: Busting the both-sides-do-it myth

In personal terms, this means that - even though I live in the most liberal area in North Carolina - my vote was rendered null and void by the careful creation of safe Republican seats via dilution of the Democrat vote. Asheville, a college town and a hippie mecca, is represented in both the State House and in D.C. by Republican legislators.

This strikes me as an abrogation of my Constitutional right to proportionate representation. In fact, it strikes me as so blatantly in opposition to the spirit and letter of the Constitution, that I am considering asking the ACLU to take up a suit against the State of North Carolina. I would like top take this idea to a Constitutional scholar at a local University, and ask for help in crafting my initial argument. But even before taking this step, I thought I'd ask folks here what they think. If you were to approach a Constitutional scholar for help in suing the State, how would you word your verbal argument?

By the way, in regards to NC and your complaints about proportionality and the unfair Republicans.

In 2010 the Republicans/Democratic Split was 6(R) and 7 (D) for 1,440,913 (R) vs. 1,204,635 (D) votes. In other words, the Democrats only got 45.4 percent of the vote but the majority of seats. Now the Democrats only got (2014) 45 percent of the vote and lost several seats.

Sounds like whose ox is gored?

It doesn't matter which side is doing it, gerrymandering is wrong and undermines the very foundation of representative democracy. It simply happens that the GOP has been doing it more egregiously in recent years, due in part to the development of software that makes gerrymandering even easier. Democrats have been playing the same game for years, and it's just as wrong when they do it. Gerrymandering needs to stop, and redistricting needs to be done via an algorithm, not by politicians who have something to gain by rigging the vote.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

So how is it in a 'randomly drawn' map that a mere 51 percent of the vote (your number) becomes an average of 7.6 Democratic seats and GOP average of 5.4? Given that the difference is razor thin two percent, one might suppose an average simulation outcome closer to 6.7 Democratic seats (and 6.3 for Republicans). In fact in their simulation it is came out just as likely for Democrats to get 8 seats as 7 seats, and even greater odds that they would get 9 seats rather than only 6 seems very odd - this comes from a mere 51% vote?

That's been understood for years (and is one of the reasons Gerrymandering has become so aggressive in the first place). It happens when a large bloc of conservative voters all wind up in the same general area as a matter of demographic or socioeconomic concentration. If, for example, 90% of all Republican voters all live in two highly affluent congressional districts, the other 30% are spread too thinly to win races in other districts. In this (extreme) scenario, the Republicans would win both of those districts by huge landslides, but would loose in almost every other district by somewhat smaller margins, despite the OVERALL vote being relatively narrow.

Sans Gerrymandering, it would be VERY difficult to arrange a situation where the distribution of candidates actually went in the opposite direction of the popular vote. If, say, you have a very high and heavily democratic urban population -- the majority of the state's population -- all clustered into one district surrounded by a dozen sparsely populated Republican districts; but THAT would screw up the state's representation anyway, giving a huge number of people only a single representative and a small number of people MANY representatives. So long as the random districts reflect actual population densities (which they DO, in this study) that ceases to be a problem.

Finally, there is a bit of begging the question by the authors (and you). Who says that compactness and pinpoint accuracy in population divisions are only of interest? Compactness is appealing because it avoids some of the absurd gerrymandering; on the other hand it also makes sense to take into account community interests. How can one reflect "the will of the people" if the 51 percent are part of a winner take all? What happens to the will of the 49%?

One should consider that large groups of people in a particular community are more likely to vote together on a particular regional issue than not. For example, voters are more likely to support an anti-fracking candidate if they all live in a town whose water supply has previously been poisoned by fracking. It would be uniquely undemocratic to deliberately split that town into four different districts, dividing up its voters and forcing them to try and out vote pro-fracking voters from the other side of the state. At least insofar as LOCAL politics will be preserved by letting people vote together in geographic knots, the "winner takes all" problem is somewhat mitigated.

And such communities of interest often span party divisions. In California they include agriculture, environmental concerns, ethnic community, hi-tech industry, etc. Should not the lives and fortunes of those folks be included if practical?

Possibly, but it sort of depends on who defines what interests are relevant and what communities are included in them, while at the same time adjusting for representation by population. That potentially just boils down into gerrymandering again.

It would seem to me to be far more efficient to distribute congressional districts among organic, pre-existing political entities -- towns, urban districts, counties, etc -- with an acceptable margin for population difference. This way, you at least avoid the trap of slicing up demographic groups for some political advantage: if you want to get access to those 30,000 white republican votes in that wealthy suburb, you're also going to be stuck with 55,000 democratic votes from the neighboring college towns because a congressional district has to have at least 100,000 votes.

 

[arkirk]

This argument seems to be boiling down to two sides, both composed of electoral hogs arguing about how much political slop they get in their political wheeling and dealing. The so called "electorate" is staying home in droves. We could solve this problem, the question of who gets the power to fuck with the public through the legislature by just putting these clowns in the ring and letting them slug it out...no brass knuckles allowed. Seriously, a Constitution that gave the slave owners voting power for the slaves they owned didn't concern itself very much with fairness.

Today's electoral politics is little more than a Kabuki presentation of a parade of totally compromised and corrupted politicians that only represent their FUNDING SOURCE. It may well be "constitutional." A more probing question is whether or not this menagerie of right wing and center right wing power grabbers is serving the people of this country. The political class has insulated itself from the public by a thick wall of monied interests, a powerful security apparatus, and the filter of consolidated mass media blocs.

Watching this argument here is like watching tweedledee and tweedledum argue. All these people we are arguing about end their political speeches with "God bless America." We need to adjust the methods we use to determine who leads the country and also the limitations that our legislative, judicial and executive officers must accept along with their offices. This argument between two sham parties will go nowhere.