12 ms·

Death to the Gerrymander

179 points by rashkov 10y ago

minnesotastyle 10y ago
I like the idea of a mathematical formula for determining politicization of redistricting. I'm not sure if SCOTUS would really impose a mathematical limit to wasted vote efficiency but maybe we could use more math and technocratic solutions to political problems!
ktRolster 10y ago
As long as people vote based primarily based on party, there will always be gerrymandering.
- tps5 10y ago
  Perhaps another possibility is the supreme court deciding that gerrymandering is illegal and establishing a rule by which district boundaries can be judged to be fair. You know, like the article mentioned...
- quadrangle 10y ago
  All you need is an objective requirement for how districts are determined. Besides, gerrymandering could happen with just ideological differences in the total absence of parties.
  - ktRolster 10y ago
    The person who decides which 'objective' requirement get used will win.
    - quadrangle 10y ago
      Well, so the objective requirement must be decided by consensus of a group of people representing a wide range of interests.
brianolson 10y ago
If we optimize districts to minimize the efficiency gap we're just gerrymandering to a different measure. This is shoddy proportionality. We could have proper Proportional Representation[1] via a big at-large election using the Single Transferable Vote process. We should either have locality based districts, or give up on districting and have some other identity based constituency representation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  Proportional representation gives undue power to small parties, who can make demands disproportional to their share of the vote in exchange for pushing legislation past the 50% threshold (it's even worse in a parliamentary system, where small parties are often king-makers). The American system is more about representing the preferences of communities than directly those of individuals. When you look at it like that, things like the electoral college, the senate, and plurality voting make sense.
  - flukus 10y ago
    > Proportional representation gives undue power to small parties, who can make demands disproportional to their share of the vote in exchange for pushing legislation past the 50% threshold (it's even worse in a parliamentary system, where small parties are often king-makers). This is only true when larger parties can't cooperate.
    - marcoperaza 10y ago
      And if they can, you end up with a "grand coalition" that lacks the internal cohesion and unity of vision to take any meaningful action.
      - flukus 10y ago
        They don't need to be in a coalition at all, they just have to get enough support for each individual piece of legislation and vote on it's merits.
randcraw 10y ago
There have been algorithms and even software implementations for a while now that fix or greatly equalize gerrymandered districts. Here's an article from the July 2014 Wash Post on one such solution, with example maps: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/06/03/this-computer-programmer-solved-gerrymandering-in-his-spare-time/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/06/03/this-...
stretchwithme 10y ago
Why try to fix a system that denies most people the representative they prefer? We'd be better off if we used proportional representation. Imagine a court case where all parties to the suit first must pick ONE lawyer to represent all of their competing points of view. That'll work, won't it? Like our representatives, lawyers would put a lot of effort into convincing the parties that they are the right lawyer. And, once elected, ALL the power is at the disposal of that lawyer. He controls the outcome. And he can start collecting bribes. Oh, he'll claim to represent ALL of the people.
- simonh 10y ago
  > Why try to fix a system... Because perfect really often is the enemy of the good. If a perfect system isn't practically achievable, in the near term at least, is there really no point in making any improvement at all? In any case sometimes the best route to an ideal or near-ideal destinations is one step at a time.
  - stretchwithme 10y ago
    That's why I suggested a good system, rather than a perfect one. Dozens of countries already use proportional representation.
    - simonh 10y ago
      Yes, but there's no appetite for a change of that magnitude in the US today. But if PR is your goal, I think a more representative version of the current system is more likely to lead us to that than an increasingly less representative version of it through persistent creeping gerrymandering.
      - stretchwithme 10y ago
        There's only so much appetite for change. I wouldn't want to waste it on a marginal improvement that only benefits people with similar perspectives if they live in the same area.
tunesmith 10y ago
The thought experiment I've liked in the past is... Say you have a 55/45 state, with 9 congressional districts. Roughly speaking, what is most fair? A 5/4 district split? Or, each district being 55-45, i.e. 9/0? If I'm reading it right, it sounds like the efficiency gap would mean that 5/4 would be more fair, but that would actually require drawing districts in a way that pays attention to the political and demographic makeup of the geography. I get that for many states, if the Democrats had the 55, then current gerrymandering means that they might only get 2/7, or two out of the nine candidates, which seems wildly off no matter how you look at it, but still, I have trouble identifying the principle of what fair actually is. And I don't like the answer of just arbitrarily picking a math formula that is used the same way everywhere. Because, in the absence of a principle behind it, it could be just as distorted. For instance, if 5/4 is more fair, then a geographically blind districting program could very easily end up with similar blended districts leading to a 9/0 state.
- kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
  Districts should reflect the constituents that live in them. Marginalizing groups by splitting and packing is an affront to a representative democracy. This has become pathological now that there is software that can nudge boundaries by a single neighborhood block to chose the desired voter distribution.
  - tunesmith 10y ago
    That's tautological - by definition, every district reflects the constituents that live in them, no matter how it is drawn. But I think I know what you mean. But I also think that even if you don't split apart certain neighborhoods or regions that have very clear boundaries (which isn't universal), it's still very easy to go pretty far in the 5/4 direction or the 9/0 direction. So this standard doesn't really answer the question.
- chongli 10y ago
  Districts should be drawn up without any regard to political affiliation. They should reflect population distribution and area. With the right mathematical model, districts could be optimized to be the most compact and regular shapes possible. This would be a boon for coordination of boots on the ground campaigns and it would reflect the geographic distribution of people.
my_first_acct 10y ago
Many HN readers live in California, so it may be worth mentioning that redistricting in that state is handled by the independent California Citizens Redistricting Commission [1]. The commission was put in place by a couple of voter initiatives, which were opposed by many elements of the political establishment. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the primary supporters of the two initiatives [2][3]; I consider the CCRC to be one of Gov. Schwarzenegger's most significant accomplishments. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Citizens_Redistricting_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Citizens_Redistrict... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_11_(2008)#Donors_supporting_Prop_11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_11_(200... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_20_(2010)#Supporters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_20_(201...
- secabeen 10y ago
  Agreed. California voters should also be aware that every few years, the parties try to sneak in propositions that de-fang or diminish the commission.
- r00fus 10y ago
  Amusingly, it's possibly because of the CCRC that Democrats won a supermajority in the CA assembly as CA has shifted even more blue since it's been in effect.
  - Taek 10y ago
    Is this because of unfair districting or because a genuine supermajority of citizens is Democratic?
    - bsder 10y ago
      Mostly genuine. However, the "jungle primary" also has an effect. Since the top two vote getters irrespective of party go to the general election, you can't just squeak by a primary and then cruise to victory in a safe district (the Tea Party tactic). The minority party gets to weigh in at the general, so if two Republicans or two Democrats go to the general, the more moderate one is going to likely pull more votes from the minority party. This pulls people closer to center which tends to favor Democrats.
Ericson2314 10y ago
So many haters in this thread. I agree we should aim high, and I'd hate to be the incrementalist in the room but—more math for the courts and a solution to a problem that, if successful, is likely to lead to solutions to more problems? Hell yeah!
itgoon 10y ago
The Constitution allows for many more representatives. Why don't we bump up that number, to say, 10,000 members in the HoR? Logistical problems? Yes, there would be quite a few. As it is, any given member has to suck up to moneyed interests, just to be able to afford to become elected. If any given rep only had to sway a few 10s of thousands, the barrier to entry is much lower. Positions which are considered "fringe" would have some say, and there would be a lot more room for third parties. I certainly think it would be a lot easier than some of the structural changes often proposed.
- ericdykstra 10y ago
  I'm for more representatives for sure! Include a certain percentage determined by sortition, and you might get a representative democracy that represents "the people" better than what we currently have.
  - sremani 10y ago
    Packing the Congress may sound fun, but we do have local representatives in local and county too. Every thing need not be decided in DC.
    - ianai 10y ago
      I think the real corruption lies in the senate.
- ComputerGuru 10y ago
  There is more merit to this than initially meets the eye. It could be argued that the democracy our founding fathers envisioned would, in fact, look like that - just compare the lower house head count to the population of the time versus the present ratio. How much more connected to the government and better represented would you feel when your representative is really just another bloke from your neighborhood?
  - itgoon 10y ago
ImTalking 10y ago
Gerrymandering would be a non-issue if voting was mandatory.
- Others 10y ago
  Can you explain why you believe that mandatory voting would solve Gerrymandering? I've given it a cursory thought, and it doesn't seem obvious...
  - quadrangle 10y ago
    It doesn't, the poster was mistaken. I just explained in my reply.
    - kmicklas 10y ago
      OP actually has some sound reasoning in reply to parent comment. I'm not sure how convinced I am without evidence. Also stopping gerrymandering is way more politically feasible than mandatory voting.
      - quadrangle 10y ago
        Their argument isn't sound. Gerrymandering already provides extremely complex districts that are close to as ludicrous as considering particular city blocks. It's not an all-or-nothing thing. It's not like the 42% of non-voters are a random mix of people in such a randomly placed geography that it would hamper the efforts to gerrymander. Instead, we have every reason to believe that the non-voters are still segregated and partisan enough to be identifiable for gerrymandering. And the gerrymandering needs only to be partially effective to have a significant impact.
  - ImTalking 10y ago
    Because if everyone voted, it would be prohibitively expensive to gerrymander down to small areas such as individual city-blocks. You may have a generally Republican area but a small area/block within would be Democrat because of (say) a respected church leader, for example. Also, older people vote at much higher percentages than the young and are usually much more settled. If everyone voted, then gerrymandering would have to deal with a population much more in-flux, and the partisan areas would be much harder to identify and maintain. If you had 1,000 people voting, it would be very easy to gerrymander; 330M people not so much.
dragonwriter 10y ago
Gerrymandering is just one way the fundamental representation problem with single-member FPTP districts manifests. Eliminating gerrymandering doesn't eliminate the fundamental problem, it just makes it a little more opaque the particular manner in which it will manifest.
- r00fus 10y ago
  It's a huge piece of the problem. Better voting systems don't establish themselves, you have to bootstrap, and that's using the FPTP process to vote in folks who institute change and get us to IRV or Condorcet.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Better voting systems don't establish themselves, you have to bootstrap, and that's using the FPTP process to vote in folks who institute change and get us to IRV or Condorcet. No, it's bypassing offices elected by FPTP by using the citizen initiative process in the states, and proving reforms there. (And the representation problem is fundamental to single-member districts, so IRV and Condorcet aren't solutions.)
    - r00fus 10y ago
      Explain to me why IRV and Condorcet don't help with single-winner outcomes. The main problem with FPTP is the 3rd party spoiler, which both approval-based voting systems address.
failrate 10y ago
I believe that a fairer method of districting would be to generate a Voronoi graph where the size of each cell is based on population data. Each cell should be centered around a population centroid and should contain approximately the same number of citizens.
- pzone 10y ago
  That doesn't necessarily solve the problem - you can still gerrymander quite a lot by strategically placing the centroids. An effective solution has to ensure the vote outcomes are not skewed. Simple geometrical constraints aren't enough to guarantee this.
  - failrate 10y ago
    Centroid are defined by the data points that constitute them. You could only manipulate them by moving people's physical location.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
elihu 10y ago
I'm confused by the description of the formula. > This formula—called the “efficiency gap”—cites two types of “wasted votes” in the redistricting process: “lost votes” cast in favor of a defeated candidate, and “surplus votes” cast in favor of a winning candidate that weren’t actually necessary for the candidate’s victory. The efficiency gap is, in Stephanopoulos’ words, “the difference between the parties’ respective wasted votes in an election, divided by the total number of votes cast.” > When both Democrats and Republican waste roughly the same number of votes, the efficiency gap is near zero. Say there's an election and the candidate from party A gets 51,000 votes and the candidate for party B gets 49,000 votes. So, party B had 49,000 wasted votes (their candidate didn't win), while party A had 1,999 wasted votes (they weren't necessary to win). So, we calculate the efficiency gap as (49000-1999)/100000, or 47.001%. That's really high, but there's not necessarily any gerrymandering going on. Presumably when a state has a lot of races, each party will win some and lose some, so the efficiency gap won't be so heavily skewed. However, supposing you had ten districts that were completely homogeneous and one party won all ten by a narrow margin, the efficiency gap would be the same very high value of 47.001%. Is it fair to call that an example of gerrymandering? If we labelled it as a result of unconstitutional gerrymandering, is that kind of like saying the voters the wrong way? Can there be false positives where the efficiency gap is high without gerrymandering? Or am I just misunderstanding the description of the formula?
- quanticle 10y ago
  The process is poorly described. The Brennan Center [1] does a better job. The key point in the efficiency gap is that you don't calculate district by district. You calculate the efficiency gap for all of the districts in a state. Yes, if a single party won all districts by a 2% margin, it would be gerrymandering. It's not statistically believable for a party to win that many districts "by chance", especially if the vote margins are that narrow in each district. If Party A wins District 1 by 2%, I'd expect Party B to win District 2, etc. If Party A wins Districts 1-100 by 2%, then yes, I'd strongly suspect gerrymandering. [1]: https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legal-work/How_the_Efficiency_Gap_Standard_Works.pdf https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legal-work...
rmc 10y ago
Gerrymandering was used in Northern Ireland for a long time, though usually to favour one side. After a slow burning civil war in the late 20th century, they is now a complicated voting and parliamentary system, with many memeber constituancies.
tom_mellior 10y ago
From the article: "The difficulty in curbing partisan gerrymandering has not been in convincing judges that the practice is unconstitutional—the Supreme Court has found that it is" where the part "the Supreme Court has found that it is" is a link that goes to this case: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1985/84-1244 https://www.oyez.org/cases/1985/84-1244 That page then summarizes the Supreme Court case as follows: Question Did Indiana's 1981 state apportionment violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? Conclusion No. [...] So... Am I misunderstanding something, or is the article's claim completely wrong? In which case, I'd guess that its optimism is unfounded.
- epmaybe 10y ago
  I think they are trying to make the point that the specific ruling was that the state apportionment itself was fine, but that "The Court also ruled that political gerrymandering claims were properly justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause, noting that judicially manageable standards could be discerned and applied in such cases." So I think they (not a legal scholar by any means) are saying that if the case is about gerrymandering specifically then they would be able to do something about it.
arca_vorago 10y ago
I think besides the failure of the system and the people to keep the politicians in check for gerrymandering, the main issue is that the districting system hasn't done a good job of keeping up with population growth. Therefor my proposed solution would be to increase representation and more districts, albeit smaller ones. The main problem with this I foresee is lack of room on Capitol Hill, but perhaps congress really doesn't need to be on Capitol Hill considering modern technology. With the added Benefit that Kstreet would have a much higher barrier to entry this way, and through a more decentralized structure, we would end up with a more egalitarian system.
torpfactory 10y ago
Let's have what I'd like to call double blind Gerrymandering: - States package demographic maps WITHOUT party affiliation and send to an "independent commission" (whatever that means...) who does NOT open the maps (preferably is not able to for technical reasons). These maps only include only location of voters geographically. All geographic names have been stripped from this record. Maybe we even have a method to obfuscate the geometry of the maps but maintain the relationship between location and vote. Idea is: anyone who is not very familiar with the maps and American politics would not be able to tell what map they are looking at. - Send this package of information to some independent contractors chosen by the commission. It would work best if these are people found living under a rock who had no knowledge of American politics but were magically also well educated in mathematics. These contractors would draw up the maps in some 'locality' based system and return them to the commission, who would forward them on to the states. - The states have no way of knowing which state's information went to which contractor as this information is 'lost' at the 'independent commission'. The independent commission doesn't know which contract worked with which map so they have no way of influencing the process. - We could also do plenty of more sensible things like Mixed Member proportional or any number of other reasonable ideas. I like this one because of how crazy it sounds...
- barneygumble742 10y ago
  The fastest and laziest way of gerrymandering is by strictly using party affiliation. One can correlate party affiliation with race/gender/household income/county tax rates. At the state level, all this information is available online to anyone so you may not get an exact number on party affiliation, you can make a very accurate estimate and use that data to draw district lines. For a true non-gerrymandered district lines, you only need the population and make sure there's not a single gap between the districts.
lkrubner 10y ago
All of the problems with gerrymandering can be solved by eliminating districts and holding all elections at the national level. As a thought experiment, assume a society that is ruled by a legislature of 29 people. Each year, society votes and elects a single individual, who then serves for 29 years. One person elected per year for 29 years gives you a legislature of 29 people. If all local, city, and regional voting districts are abolished (the districts still exist, but these are appointed positions, not elected) the public, and the media, are able to focus their energy on choosing the one best person each year. All elected leaders face a strict term limit of one term. Advantages of the system: 1.) leaders serve long enough that they can enact meaningful reform. They can also carry out necessary, but unpopular, policies, without facing immediate backlash from the people. 2.) There are no districts, therefore there is no gerrymandering. 3.) There are no decisive elections. Unlike Germany in 1933 or the USA in 2016, there are no elections in which it feels like the entire regime has changed all at once. All change is gradual, and it happens at the same pace every year. 4.) Society finally gets the true benefits of the rule of law, which is freedom from arbitrary changes. No government made of mortal flesh can ever be ensured to be wise, so hoping for wisdom is not realistic, but the rule of law can offer us stability and freedom from arbitrary government. Some of these ideas go back to Plato. His Council Of Wisdom was to be made of those leaders who would serve forever. Considering how much the West seems to admire Plato, it is odd that no Western nation has ever attempted to implement anything like his ideas.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  >3.) There are no decisive elections. Unlike Germany in 1933 or the USA in 2016, there are no elections in which it feels like the entire regime has changed all at once. All change is gradual, and it happens at the same pace every year. The funny thing is, USA 2016 didn't change everything at once. The Republicans already held Congress, and actually lost a few House and Senate seats. They unexpectedly gained the Presidency, but their seeming total power now comes only from their extreme willingness to use procedural tactics that other Americans regard as "bad sport". This turned a Presidential upset into a Presidential upset plus a free seat on the Supreme Court, similarly to how it turned the midterms in 2010 from a midterm election in which the opposition party usually gains seats into a semi-permanent Republican legislative majority throughout the 2010s (thanks to the gerrymandering described in TFA).
huntersmith 10y ago
More info from the writer, Mark Joseph Stern -> http://share.sparemin.com/recording-6618 http://share.sparemin.com/recording-6618
ALee 10y ago
I had the opportunity to have lunch with a lead pollster at the Cook Political Report - I asked him whether he thought redistricting reform could decrease partisanship. He pointed to the Senate as a reason that partisanship still continues. The one thing that he said would make the biggest political impact might actual be open primary (top two vote getters move on to the general, regardless of party) - which would moderate folks. I'm still a believer in gerrymandering reform, but the tendrils of self-segregation run deep and gerrymandering reform is just one weapon against the hydra of partisanship.

179 points by rashkov 10y ago

I like the idea of a mathematical formula for determining politicization of redistricting. I'm not sure if SCOTUS would really impose a mathematical limit to wasted vote efficiency but maybe we could use more math and technocratic solutions to political problems!

ktRolster 10y ago

As long as people vote based primarily based on party, there will always be gerrymandering.

tps5 10y ago
Perhaps another possibility is the supreme court deciding that gerrymandering is illegal and establishing a rule by which district boundaries can be judged to be fair. You know, like the article mentioned...
quadrangle 10y ago
All you need is an objective requirement for how districts are determined. Besides, gerrymandering could happen with just ideological differences in the total absence of parties.
- ktRolster 10y ago
  The person who decides which 'objective' requirement get used will win.
  - quadrangle 10y ago
    Well, so the objective requirement must be decided by consensus of a group of people representing a wide range of interests.

brianolson 10y ago

If we optimize districts to minimize the efficiency gap we're just gerrymandering to a different measure. This is shoddy proportionality. We could have proper Proportional Representation[1] via a big at-large election using the Single Transferable Vote process. We should either have locality based districts, or give up on districting and have some other identity based constituency representation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote

marcoperaza 10y ago
Proportional representation gives undue power to small parties, who can make demands disproportional to their share of the vote in exchange for pushing legislation past the 50% threshold (it's even worse in a parliamentary system, where small parties are often king-makers). The American system is more about representing the preferences of communities than directly those of individuals. When you look at it like that, things like the electoral college, the senate, and plurality voting make sense.
- flukus 10y ago
  > Proportional representation gives undue power to small parties, who can make demands disproportional to their share of the vote in exchange for pushing legislation past the 50% threshold (it's even worse in a parliamentary system, where small parties are often king-makers). This is only true when larger parties can't cooperate.
  - marcoperaza 10y ago
    And if they can, you end up with a "grand coalition" that lacks the internal cohesion and unity of vision to take any meaningful action.
    - flukus 10y ago
      They don't need to be in a coalition at all, they just have to get enough support for each individual piece of legislation and vote on it's merits.

randcraw 10y ago

There have been algorithms and even software implementations for a while now that fix or greatly equalize gerrymandered districts. Here's an article from the July 2014 Wash Post on one such solution, with example maps: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/06/03/this-computer-programmer-solved-gerrymandering-in-his-spare-time/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/06/03/this-...

stretchwithme 10y ago

Why try to fix a system that denies most people the representative they prefer? We'd be better off if we used proportional representation. Imagine a court case where all parties to the suit first must pick ONE lawyer to represent all of their competing points of view. That'll work, won't it? Like our representatives, lawyers would put a lot of effort into convincing the parties that they are the right lawyer. And, once elected, ALL the power is at the disposal of that lawyer. He controls the outcome. And he can start collecting bribes. Oh, he'll claim to represent ALL of the people.

simonh 10y ago
> Why try to fix a system... Because perfect really often is the enemy of the good. If a perfect system isn't practically achievable, in the near term at least, is there really no point in making any improvement at all? In any case sometimes the best route to an ideal or near-ideal destinations is one step at a time.
- stretchwithme 10y ago
  That's why I suggested a good system, rather than a perfect one. Dozens of countries already use proportional representation.
  - simonh 10y ago
    Yes, but there's no appetite for a change of that magnitude in the US today. But if PR is your goal, I think a more representative version of the current system is more likely to lead us to that than an increasingly less representative version of it through persistent creeping gerrymandering.
    - stretchwithme 10y ago
      There's only so much appetite for change. I wouldn't want to waste it on a marginal improvement that only benefits people with similar perspectives if they live in the same area.

tunesmith 10y ago

The thought experiment I've liked in the past is... Say you have a 55/45 state, with 9 congressional districts. Roughly speaking, what is most fair? A 5/4 district split? Or, each district being 55-45, i.e. 9/0? If I'm reading it right, it sounds like the efficiency gap would mean that 5/4 would be more fair, but that would actually require drawing districts in a way that pays attention to the political and demographic makeup of the geography. I get that for many states, if the Democrats had the 55, then current gerrymandering means that they might only get 2/7, or two out of the nine candidates, which seems wildly off no matter how you look at it, but still, I have trouble identifying the principle of what fair actually is. And I don't like the answer of just arbitrarily picking a math formula that is used the same way everywhere. Because, in the absence of a principle behind it, it could be just as distorted. For instance, if 5/4 is more fair, then a geographically blind districting program could very easily end up with similar blended districts leading to a 9/0 state.

kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
Districts should reflect the constituents that live in them. Marginalizing groups by splitting and packing is an affront to a representative democracy. This has become pathological now that there is software that can nudge boundaries by a single neighborhood block to chose the desired voter distribution.
- tunesmith 10y ago
  That's tautological - by definition, every district reflects the constituents that live in them, no matter how it is drawn. But I think I know what you mean. But I also think that even if you don't split apart certain neighborhoods or regions that have very clear boundaries (which isn't universal), it's still very easy to go pretty far in the 5/4 direction or the 9/0 direction. So this standard doesn't really answer the question.
chongli 10y ago
Districts should be drawn up without any regard to political affiliation. They should reflect population distribution and area. With the right mathematical model, districts could be optimized to be the most compact and regular shapes possible. This would be a boon for coordination of boots on the ground campaigns and it would reflect the geographic distribution of people.

my_first_acct 10y ago

Many HN readers live in California, so it may be worth mentioning that redistricting in that state is handled by the independent California Citizens Redistricting Commission [1]. The commission was put in place by a couple of voter initiatives, which were opposed by many elements of the political establishment. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the primary supporters of the two initiatives [2][3]; I consider the CCRC to be one of Gov. Schwarzenegger's most significant accomplishments. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Citizens_Redistricting_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Citizens_Redistrict... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_11_(2008)#Donors_supporting_Prop_11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_11_(200... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_20_(2010)#Supporters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_20_(201...

secabeen 10y ago
Agreed. California voters should also be aware that every few years, the parties try to sneak in propositions that de-fang or diminish the commission.
r00fus 10y ago
Amusingly, it's possibly because of the CCRC that Democrats won a supermajority in the CA assembly as CA has shifted even more blue since it's been in effect.
- Taek 10y ago
  Is this because of unfair districting or because a genuine supermajority of citizens is Democratic?
  - bsder 10y ago
    Mostly genuine. However, the "jungle primary" also has an effect. Since the top two vote getters irrespective of party go to the general election, you can't just squeak by a primary and then cruise to victory in a safe district (the Tea Party tactic). The minority party gets to weigh in at the general, so if two Republicans or two Democrats go to the general, the more moderate one is going to likely pull more votes from the minority party. This pulls people closer to center which tends to favor Democrats.

Ericson2314 10y ago

So many haters in this thread. I agree we should aim high, and I'd hate to be the incrementalist in the room but—more math for the courts and a solution to a problem that, if successful, is likely to lead to solutions to more problems? Hell yeah!

itgoon 10y ago

The Constitution allows for many more representatives. Why don't we bump up that number, to say, 10,000 members in the HoR? Logistical problems? Yes, there would be quite a few. As it is, any given member has to suck up to moneyed interests, just to be able to afford to become elected. If any given rep only had to sway a few 10s of thousands, the barrier to entry is much lower. Positions which are considered "fringe" would have some say, and there would be a lot more room for third parties. I certainly think it would be a lot easier than some of the structural changes often proposed.

ericdykstra 10y ago
I'm for more representatives for sure! Include a certain percentage determined by sortition, and you might get a representative democracy that represents "the people" better than what we currently have.
- sremani 10y ago
  Packing the Congress may sound fun, but we do have local representatives in local and county too. Every thing need not be decided in DC.
  - ianai 10y ago
    I think the real corruption lies in the senate.
ComputerGuru 10y ago
There is more merit to this than initially meets the eye. It could be argued that the democracy our founding fathers envisioned would, in fact, look like that - just compare the lower house head count to the population of the time versus the present ratio. How much more connected to the government and better represented would you feel when your representative is really just another bloke from your neighborhood?
- itgoon 10y ago

ImTalking 10y ago

Gerrymandering would be a non-issue if voting was mandatory.

Others 10y ago
Can you explain why you believe that mandatory voting would solve Gerrymandering? I've given it a cursory thought, and it doesn't seem obvious...
- quadrangle 10y ago
  It doesn't, the poster was mistaken. I just explained in my reply.
  - kmicklas 10y ago
    OP actually has some sound reasoning in reply to parent comment. I'm not sure how convinced I am without evidence. Also stopping gerrymandering is way more politically feasible than mandatory voting.
    - quadrangle 10y ago
      Their argument isn't sound. Gerrymandering already provides extremely complex districts that are close to as ludicrous as considering particular city blocks. It's not an all-or-nothing thing. It's not like the 42% of non-voters are a random mix of people in such a randomly placed geography that it would hamper the efforts to gerrymander. Instead, we have every reason to believe that the non-voters are still segregated and partisan enough to be identifiable for gerrymandering. And the gerrymandering needs only to be partially effective to have a significant impact.
- ImTalking 10y ago
  Because if everyone voted, it would be prohibitively expensive to gerrymander down to small areas such as individual city-blocks. You may have a generally Republican area but a small area/block within would be Democrat because of (say) a respected church leader, for example. Also, older people vote at much higher percentages than the young and are usually much more settled. If everyone voted, then gerrymandering would have to deal with a population much more in-flux, and the partisan areas would be much harder to identify and maintain. If you had 1,000 people voting, it would be very easy to gerrymander; 330M people not so much.

dragonwriter 10y ago

Gerrymandering is just one way the fundamental representation problem with single-member FPTP districts manifests. Eliminating gerrymandering doesn't eliminate the fundamental problem, it just makes it a little more opaque the particular manner in which it will manifest.

r00fus 10y ago
It's a huge piece of the problem. Better voting systems don't establish themselves, you have to bootstrap, and that's using the FPTP process to vote in folks who institute change and get us to IRV or Condorcet.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Better voting systems don't establish themselves, you have to bootstrap, and that's using the FPTP process to vote in folks who institute change and get us to IRV or Condorcet. No, it's bypassing offices elected by FPTP by using the citizen initiative process in the states, and proving reforms there. (And the representation problem is fundamental to single-member districts, so IRV and Condorcet aren't solutions.)
  - r00fus 10y ago
    Explain to me why IRV and Condorcet don't help with single-winner outcomes. The main problem with FPTP is the 3rd party spoiler, which both approval-based voting systems address.

failrate 10y ago

I believe that a fairer method of districting would be to generate a Voronoi graph where the size of each cell is based on population data. Each cell should be centered around a population centroid and should contain approximately the same number of citizens.

pzone 10y ago
That doesn't necessarily solve the problem - you can still gerrymander quite a lot by strategically placing the centroids. An effective solution has to ensure the vote outcomes are not skewed. Simple geometrical constraints aren't enough to guarantee this.
- failrate 10y ago
  Centroid are defined by the data points that constitute them. You could only manipulate them by moving people's physical location.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

elihu 10y ago

I'm confused by the description of the formula. > This formula—called the “efficiency gap”—cites two types of “wasted votes” in the redistricting process: “lost votes” cast in favor of a defeated candidate, and “surplus votes” cast in favor of a winning candidate that weren’t actually necessary for the candidate’s victory. The efficiency gap is, in Stephanopoulos’ words, “the difference between the parties’ respective wasted votes in an election, divided by the total number of votes cast.” > When both Democrats and Republican waste roughly the same number of votes, the efficiency gap is near zero. Say there's an election and the candidate from party A gets 51,000 votes and the candidate for party B gets 49,000 votes. So, party B had 49,000 wasted votes (their candidate didn't win), while party A had 1,999 wasted votes (they weren't necessary to win). So, we calculate the efficiency gap as (49000-1999)/100000, or 47.001%. That's really high, but there's not necessarily any gerrymandering going on. Presumably when a state has a lot of races, each party will win some and lose some, so the efficiency gap won't be so heavily skewed. However, supposing you had ten districts that were completely homogeneous and one party won all ten by a narrow margin, the efficiency gap would be the same very high value of 47.001%. Is it fair to call that an example of gerrymandering? If we labelled it as a result of unconstitutional gerrymandering, is that kind of like saying the voters the wrong way? Can there be false positives where the efficiency gap is high without gerrymandering? Or am I just misunderstanding the description of the formula?

quanticle 10y ago
The process is poorly described. The Brennan Center [1] does a better job. The key point in the efficiency gap is that you don't calculate district by district. You calculate the efficiency gap for all of the districts in a state. Yes, if a single party won all districts by a 2% margin, it would be gerrymandering. It's not statistically believable for a party to win that many districts "by chance", especially if the vote margins are that narrow in each district. If Party A wins District 1 by 2%, I'd expect Party B to win District 2, etc. If Party A wins Districts 1-100 by 2%, then yes, I'd strongly suspect gerrymandering. [1]: https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legal-work/How_the_Efficiency_Gap_Standard_Works.pdf https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legal-work...

rmc 10y ago

Gerrymandering was used in Northern Ireland for a long time, though usually to favour one side. After a slow burning civil war in the late 20th century, they is now a complicated voting and parliamentary system, with many memeber constituancies.

tom_mellior 10y ago

From the article: "The difficulty in curbing partisan gerrymandering has not been in convincing judges that the practice is unconstitutional—the Supreme Court has found that it is" where the part "the Supreme Court has found that it is" is a link that goes to this case: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1985/84-1244 https://www.oyez.org/cases/1985/84-1244 That page then summarizes the Supreme Court case as follows: Question Did Indiana's 1981 state apportionment violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? Conclusion No. [...] So... Am I misunderstanding something, or is the article's claim completely wrong? In which case, I'd guess that its optimism is unfounded.

epmaybe 10y ago
I think they are trying to make the point that the specific ruling was that the state apportionment itself was fine, but that "The Court also ruled that political gerrymandering claims were properly justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause, noting that judicially manageable standards could be discerned and applied in such cases." So I think they (not a legal scholar by any means) are saying that if the case is about gerrymandering specifically then they would be able to do something about it.

arca_vorago 10y ago

I think besides the failure of the system and the people to keep the politicians in check for gerrymandering, the main issue is that the districting system hasn't done a good job of keeping up with population growth. Therefor my proposed solution would be to increase representation and more districts, albeit smaller ones. The main problem with this I foresee is lack of room on Capitol Hill, but perhaps congress really doesn't need to be on Capitol Hill considering modern technology. With the added Benefit that Kstreet would have a much higher barrier to entry this way, and through a more decentralized structure, we would end up with a more egalitarian system.

torpfactory 10y ago

Let's have what I'd like to call double blind Gerrymandering: - States package demographic maps WITHOUT party affiliation and send to an "independent commission" (whatever that means...) who does NOT open the maps (preferably is not able to for technical reasons). These maps only include only location of voters geographically. All geographic names have been stripped from this record. Maybe we even have a method to obfuscate the geometry of the maps but maintain the relationship between location and vote. Idea is: anyone who is not very familiar with the maps and American politics would not be able to tell what map they are looking at. - Send this package of information to some independent contractors chosen by the commission. It would work best if these are people found living under a rock who had no knowledge of American politics but were magically also well educated in mathematics. These contractors would draw up the maps in some 'locality' based system and return them to the commission, who would forward them on to the states. - The states have no way of knowing which state's information went to which contractor as this information is 'lost' at the 'independent commission'. The independent commission doesn't know which contract worked with which map so they have no way of influencing the process. - We could also do plenty of more sensible things like Mixed Member proportional or any number of other reasonable ideas. I like this one because of how crazy it sounds...

barneygumble742 10y ago
The fastest and laziest way of gerrymandering is by strictly using party affiliation. One can correlate party affiliation with race/gender/household income/county tax rates. At the state level, all this information is available online to anyone so you may not get an exact number on party affiliation, you can make a very accurate estimate and use that data to draw district lines. For a true non-gerrymandered district lines, you only need the population and make sure there's not a single gap between the districts.

lkrubner 10y ago

All of the problems with gerrymandering can be solved by eliminating districts and holding all elections at the national level. As a thought experiment, assume a society that is ruled by a legislature of 29 people. Each year, society votes and elects a single individual, who then serves for 29 years. One person elected per year for 29 years gives you a legislature of 29 people. If all local, city, and regional voting districts are abolished (the districts still exist, but these are appointed positions, not elected) the public, and the media, are able to focus their energy on choosing the one best person each year. All elected leaders face a strict term limit of one term. Advantages of the system: 1.) leaders serve long enough that they can enact meaningful reform. They can also carry out necessary, but unpopular, policies, without facing immediate backlash from the people. 2.) There are no districts, therefore there is no gerrymandering. 3.) There are no decisive elections. Unlike Germany in 1933 or the USA in 2016, there are no elections in which it feels like the entire regime has changed all at once. All change is gradual, and it happens at the same pace every year. 4.) Society finally gets the true benefits of the rule of law, which is freedom from arbitrary changes. No government made of mortal flesh can ever be ensured to be wise, so hoping for wisdom is not realistic, but the rule of law can offer us stability and freedom from arbitrary government. Some of these ideas go back to Plato. His Council Of Wisdom was to be made of those leaders who would serve forever. Considering how much the West seems to admire Plato, it is odd that no Western nation has ever attempted to implement anything like his ideas.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>3.) There are no decisive elections. Unlike Germany in 1933 or the USA in 2016, there are no elections in which it feels like the entire regime has changed all at once. All change is gradual, and it happens at the same pace every year. The funny thing is, USA 2016 didn't change everything at once. The Republicans already held Congress, and actually lost a few House and Senate seats. They unexpectedly gained the Presidency, but their seeming total power now comes only from their extreme willingness to use procedural tactics that other Americans regard as "bad sport". This turned a Presidential upset into a Presidential upset plus a free seat on the Supreme Court, similarly to how it turned the midterms in 2010 from a midterm election in which the opposition party usually gains seats into a semi-permanent Republican legislative majority throughout the 2010s (thanks to the gerrymandering described in TFA).

huntersmith 10y ago

More info from the writer, Mark Joseph Stern -> http://share.sparemin.com/recording-6618 http://share.sparemin.com/recording-6618

ALee 10y ago

I had the opportunity to have lunch with a lead pollster at the Cook Political Report - I asked him whether he thought redistricting reform could decrease partisanship. He pointed to the Senate as a reason that partisanship still continues. The one thing that he said would make the biggest political impact might actual be open primary (top two vote getters move on to the general, regardless of party) - which would moderate folks. I'm still a believer in gerrymandering reform, but the tendrils of self-segregation run deep and gerrymandering reform is just one weapon against the hydra of partisanship.