Not sure if this has been talked about before on this site, but with all the dirty reasons why districts get drawn up the way they do, why not let a computer try?

I'm not saying this is the ideal breakdown, but it looks better to me than how the districts in NC currently stand: http://bdistricting.com/2010/NC/

10/24/2012 5:00:44 PM

It makes perfect sense from every aspect.

It's just that when the country was founded, computers didn't exist.

I'm a big fan of computers in all aspects of politics, making all kinds of decisions.

I don't know why we don't adjust tax codes and laws based on computerized models for what should provide the best incomes for the least costs.

10/24/2012 5:18:01 PM

Before we answer that question, can you explain to us why redistricting is needed in the first place?

10/24/2012 5:18:29 PM

Who writes the algorithms?

10/24/2012 5:29:29 PM

^^Because as the seats in the state congress change hands, the ability to gerrymander the districts becomes a powerful tool in keeping those seats. A strongly one-sided congress can (and has many times throughout NC history as well as in other states) redistribute the districts so that minority voices are broken up and spread out, making it so they never have enough strength to swing the vote.

Let's say hypothetically there are 5 districts and 2 political parties (A & B). Districts 1, 2, and 3 are represented by A, 4 and 5 are represented by B. Already a simple majority.

Then there is a new census, and it is determined that a 6th district needs to be added. That majority holding from party A now gets to decide where the district lines will be drawn, and they make it so District 6 takes from mostly A-voting areas without taking away from their majority in those other districs. Suddenly, there are 4 A-voting districts to just 2 B-voting districts, while there could have been a chance of making it 3 and 3.

Current NC district lines:


Computerized lines:


[Edited on October 24, 2012 at 5:39 PM. Reason : -]

10/24/2012 5:37:34 PM

^Those are the old maps. For example this was the old district in the triangle area:



This is the new one:


It's actually considerably more Democratic than it used to be. Also the new GOP created maps put some of Durham and coastal Elizabeth City in the same district.

10/24/2012 6:12:45 PM

bdmazur doesn't seem to understand the central issue...

Quote :

"Before we answer that question, can you explain to us why redistricting is needed in the first place?"

As populations shift, the districts need to be redrawn so that approximately the same number of people (according to the most recent Census) live in each district; additionally, as states lose or gain Representatives, the district maps need to change for the same "one person one vote" reason.

This requirement for redistricting was established by the Supreme Court in the late '60s after numerous Southern states refused to change their district maps even as they gained Representatives and the population patterns shifted markedly; in some states, a majority of district-based Representatives represented less than 30% of the population, nearly all of whom were white, and when those states needed to add Representatives, they were made "At-Large" and due to successful voter-suppression efforts (a.k.a. "Jim Crow") the Dixiecrats swept those seats just like the Senate and governors' seats.

10/24/2012 6:31:52 PM

Quote :

"can you explain to us why redistricting is needed in the first place?"

Look who made this statement. This will be good.

10/24/2012 7:16:35 PM

I didn't say it to be funny. I just wanted everyone to be on the same page.

10/24/2012 8:28:44 PM

Someone grab the video with the animals. That's the best case for smart redistricting that I've seen. Which is why it will never, ever be done.....

Here it is! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mky11UJb9AY&list=PLqs5ohhass_QZtSkX06DmWOaEaadwmw_D&index=23&feature=plcp

[Edited on October 24, 2012 at 10:21 PM. Reason : Found it! ]

10/24/2012 10:17:33 PM

the third response in this thread is all you need to know. no matter how redistricting is done, someone will control the process.

I can also bet that the computerized district you gave would be thrown out immediately by the courts.

10/24/2012 10:32:02 PM

yeah, something about the voting-rights act requiring a certain number of "majority-minority" districts

10/24/2012 11:48:46 PM

Quote :

"As populations shift, the districts need to be redrawn so that approximately the same number of people (according to the most recent Census) live in each district; additionally, as states lose or gain Representatives, the district maps need to change for the same "one person one vote" reason."

There needs to be a more fair and equal system for the lines to be drawn instead of the ones who happen to be in power at the time to make the decision. There's some major issues with minority (mainly Hispanic) disenfranchising in Texas right now.

10/25/2012 5:07:56 AM

We need to just forget about the regional districts for national elections. No system for national elections will be fair unless you combine votes and let them compete on a national level.

They should have house members elected by popular vote on a national level. If you can win all the votes within an area of 2 million people, then you can win. If you're a crazy Ron Paul supporter who identifies with other crazies spread over the entire nation, you should be able to collectively elect a representative.

We also need automatic runoffs in national elections. Say I want Gary Johnson most, but would rather have Obama instead of Romney. Our democracy doesn't even attempt to represent that today.

10/25/2012 8:24:59 AM

Because computer programs write themselves, can't be adjusted due to political influence, and the outcomes can't be misconstrued, just like the partisan drawing of lines?

10/25/2012 9:07:41 AM

Quote :

""can you explain to us why redistricting is needed in the first place?""

Do you mean in this specific case, or in general?

10/25/2012 9:21:33 AM

Quote :

"Who writes the algorithms?"

Edit:
I mean if they wanted to they could write the program to come up with the exact same lines as they have today.

[Edited on October 25, 2012 at 9:32 AM. Reason : -]

10/25/2012 9:31:17 AM

Quote :

"Because computer programs write themselves, can't be adjusted due to political influence, and the outcomes can't be misconstrued, just like the partisan drawing of lines?"

With a rule or algorithm that's open and published, people can check for themselves what the district lines would be. Then, they can test these results for various measures of undesirability; more importantly, it can be hard to come up with rules that benefit *your party* every time, but easy to simply pick districts that do so (with a pencil and some census data). If you tried, it'd be sitting there right in the algorithm (available for public viewing)--it's a lot easier to demonstrate bias in a suitably precise structure than to simply speculate about it.

At the very least, if some aspect of the rule were systematically linked to systematic bias, we could address that (because we could study the phenomenon more carefully). As it stands, where you can just scribble on a map to come up with them, there's no way to publicly and openly check the "intentions" of the bureaucrats. What you can't know you can't study precisely or carefully.

10/25/2012 10:08:43 AM

which is why it will never happen.

10/25/2012 10:14:17 AM

hahaha, you think politicians would allow something that transparent? hahahaha

10/25/2012 10:34:25 AM

hes just explaining why it would be better than the current system, not whether or not it will actually happen.

its a human problem that cant be solved with technology. we can use technology to make the process better, but we cant use technology to remove the desire to corrupt the process.

10/25/2012 11:07:34 AM

Quote :

"hahaha, you think politicians would allow something that transparent? hahahaha"

oh okay so let's take the dial straight to "state communism" then

10/25/2012 11:37:17 AM

Something like this would potentially be better than having people draw up the lines arbitrarily, but a lot of the same flaws from the current system are still present.

I racked my brain for years trying to figure how to convert our current electoral system into something remotely sane. Best I can come up with is some kind of state-wide proportional representation system instead of a district based system. No matter how you split up the districts, someone is getting disenfranchised. Almost everyone participating in the system is okay with some level of disenfranchisement, they just disagree on which groups should be excluded. The fundamental flaw of democracy is that some segment of society - sometimes a real majority - is not represented.

10/25/2012 2:01:43 PM

I'm with destroyer except I think we oughta have a nationally-proportionally-elected body. Maybe replace the House of Representatives with one, and keep the Senate to preserve state-by-state parity.

10/25/2012 2:17:13 PM

^^Of course we'd need to greatly bump up the size of the House, possibly to the Constitutional max of (population of the states)/30000, so that even Wyoming could realize the benefits of proportional representation with something like 19 Representatives.

10/25/2012 8:12:57 PM

Quote :

"With a rule or algorithm that's open and published, people can check for themselves what the district lines would be."

Great idea. Now, how will we come up with that algorithm... Hmmm... Oh, right, elected politicians. They'd never make lopsided rules like the people who draw up the current electoral maps do...

10/25/2012 9:15:27 PM

I guess you missed the rest of the post where McDanger said it may be easier to legally challenge a lopsided algorithm that's been codified.

Of course, maybe you're right: we should stick with back room deals. I love my district maps with a faint wiff of cigar.

10/26/2012 2:54:46 AM

Quote :

"^^Of course we'd need to greatly bump up the size of the House, possibly to the Constitutional max of (population of the states)/30000, so that even Wyoming could realize the benefits of proportional representation with something like 19 Representatives."

Well the idea would be to basically change the House from a State-interest organization to a popular-interest one.

You'd vote for parties, not representatives, and each party would get a number of representatives proportionate to their share of the vote, rather than district-by-district winner-take-all elections. Basically like they do in most European parliaments (Which, you'll notice, usually have anywhere between 3 and a dozen parties seated, and usually govern by coalition).

So basically, Wyomings wouldn't be disenfranchised unless their political party was "The Wyomingist Popular Front" and even then they might seat a representative or two. But yeah, the more representatives total the better.


[Edited on October 26, 2012 at 1:11 PM. Reason : .]

10/26/2012 1:05:02 PM

That's how the Israeli Parliament works. The majority party (or a coalition of parties that create a majority) then choose the Prime Minister.

http://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/mkindex_current_eng.asp?view=1

10/26/2012 3:03:01 PM

^^Sounds good! Let's move on it.

I'm ready to be represented.

10/26/2012 7:51:24 PM

https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.azavea.com/com.redistrictingthenation/pdfs/Redistricting_The_Nation_Addendum.pdf?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=700139&utm_campaign=0

This report discuss methods like ours where the politicians looking to be re-elected get to draw the lines versus other methods like independent commissions, non-partisan, bipartisan, and court drawn lines. Obviously no method is perfect, but guess which state they target first and say is one of the worst?

10/26/2012 9:05:44 PM

Quote :

" The top offender on our revised 2010 list of least compact districts is North Carolina’s 12th District. At 120 miles long but only 20 miles wide at its widest part, the district has the lowest z-score of any district in our analysis. It includes chunks of Charlotte and Greensboro connected by a thin strip - on average only a few miles wide - meandering along Interstate 85 between the two cities (traveling on 85 between Charlotte and Greensboro would take you in and out of the district 4 times)."

10/27/2012 6:02:28 AM

10/28/2012 12:38:27 AM

The garrymandering video suggests our voting system is fundamentally flawed because of our 1 person/1 vote system.

He doesn't say whether the "1 person/2 vote" system is better.

Is a system with "1 person/n votes" better? where n > 1
Is a system with "1 person/m-1" votes is better? where 1 < m <= number of candidate on the ballot.

10/28/2012 3:41:18 AM

The general assembly draws the lines, not Congress. At least 3 congressional seats will change hands since they packed so many dems from swing districts into safe districts like David Price's.

Some states have had good results putting a citizen committee in charge of the process...California maybe? It would be pretty straightforward if the Supreme Court overturned majority-minority district requirements, and you could use a basic algorithm that minimized length of district lines. You could add a criterion to have districts fall within some range of party affiliation (or another metric) from the composition of the State as a whole, which could theoretically make more seats competitive.

10/28/2012 9:20:13 AM

^^ Check out that guy's other videos on voting systems.

11/1/2012 3:38:13 PM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/house-candidates-votes_n_2096978.html

Quote :

"While Republicans hung onto control of the House of Representatives after Tuesday's election, Democratic candidates across the U.S. received more total votes than Republican candidates did."

11/10/2012 2:31:22 PM

DumbasSxBoY, CGPGrey says that the problem is the skewing of the districts so that the proportion of representatives of one party is much greater than its actual support in the population; one solution is proportional representation, and another is unbiased redistricting as in the OP, but the principle of "one person, one vote" would still be retained in either case.

Of course, the single-member district plurality system does have another problem: fostering a local two-party system, which proportional representation does not foster.

11/10/2012 10:01:45 PM

^^

Where were you for the past century? The Democrats made the bed (at least in North Carolina), now they have to sleep in it.

Funny article from 2010

http://www.news-record.com/blog/54431/entry/103257

Quote :

"Even with Bob Etheridge's loss to Renee Ellmers last night, Democrats still won seven of North Carolina's 13 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Advertisement | Advertise with Us Does that mean a slight majority of North Carolina voters preferred Democratic candidates in congressional races? No. Not by a long shot. Adding up the totals in those 13 races shows that Republicans won 1,424,479 votes to 1,190,579 for Democrats. That's 54.1 percent to 45.2 percent. It closely tracks the outcome of the Senate race won by Republican Richard Burr over Democrat Elaine Marshall: 1,447,737 (54.9 percent) to 1,131,590 (42.9 percent). So how could Democrats win seven House seats to only six for Republicans? In a word, through gerrymandering. "

The Democrats had power in NC for over a century, almost uninterupted, where they could have changed the destricting method to something non-partisan and fair, instead they relied on it to retain power. Little late to start crying about it now. Though it shows the extreme partisanship of several posters.

11/11/2012 10:45:34 AM

Quote :

"Where were you for the past century?"

Not alive for most of it. Doesn't mean I can't support fair voting practices in the US.

11/11/2012 11:43:49 AM

Similarly, just because the Dems have gerrymandered the fuck out of IL and MD doesn't mean it's okay there either.

11/11/2012 12:54:17 PM

Yeah, point being I didn't hear the people moaning about it now moaning just 2 years ago when it was in their favor.

11/11/2012 10:34:57 PM

Then you weren't paying attention, because all kinds of groups have been moaning about it for a long time

11/11/2012 11:06:12 PM

Normally the voices are at their loudest in years ending in 1, when reapportionment has ended and redistricting starts in earnest.

11/12/2012 2:23:44 AM

An interesting exercise is looking at margin of victory for NC's congressional seats. Only one was particularly competitive.

11/12/2012 8:10:43 AM

Newest attempt by the NC GOP to gerrymander:

11/15/2019 10:20:36 PM

They should just draw the districts so that each one has an equal number of Republicans and Democrats. Force the politicians to then be moderate to have a chance at reelection. Maybe force them to start working on behalf of the citizens and the country instead of themselves.

Can someone explain to me why they act like losing an election is worse than death? The shit these people do to stay in office just blows my mind. What is the worst that happens, they go back to practicing law?

[Edited on November 16, 2019 at 1:21 AM. Reason : a]

11/16/2019 1:20:45 AM

^That's hard to do when 40% of Americans aren't party-affiliated and the population is rapidly changing in Charlotte, Raleigh, and Durham.

There really should be three Charlotte-are districts (West Meck/Gastonia, North Meck/Concord, South Meck/Union County suburbs). Instead they have Gastonia voting in the same district as Boone, and the southeast suburbs voting with almost entirely rural areas. Doesn't seem to me like the interests of those places are going to be well represented.

11/16/2019 12:12:56 PM

equal population and also following county lines (contiguous obviously). determine how many districts total you want and then run it until you find a configuration where each district has distinct "personality / needs" from the districts touching it.

This is actually one of the more interesting "technical" SB threads, imo.

11/17/2019 9:44:09 AM