5 ms·

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 dist

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.
- specialist 10y ago
  Demographics is politics.
specialist 10y ago
The most fair is the arrangement which maximizes voter choice.
Taek 10y ago
Well, ideally everyone is proportionally represented at every level of government. So you'd want a 5/4 split at the top level, where each person has a representative that they like. You'd almost want gerrymandering, but of a different sort. Traditional gerrymandering makes some districts win by 100/0 and the rest lose 49/51 to marginalize as many people as possible. But perhaps more fair would be perfect gerrymandering - every district ends up with a 100/0 split. This means you get 5/4 at the top level, while every citizen is represented by someone they voted for. Districts end up as more of an overlapping blur.
- physicalist 10y ago
  You want even more partisanship? bc that would be the logical outcome.
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    Yeah, those 100/0 districts are not going to be "in play", as the saying is - they're not going to be a competitive race, ever. That means that all the action will be in the primary. (Of course, with a 100/0 district, maybe that's appropriate...)
cabalamat 10y ago
> Roughly speaking, what is most fair? A 5/4 district split? Or, each district being 55-45, i.e. 9/0? Neither, don't have single-member districts, use PR.
euyyn 10y ago
In Spain many are proposing to get rid of districts altogether, because they severely penalize parties that aren't the two biggest (except regionalistic parties). And this is in a country where the system actually allows third parties to get seats in Congress (even if harder) - the American system is very very ill of bipartidism. Congress should be 1 person 1 vote, no matter your political preference or where you live.
- knz 10y ago
  New Zealand has Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) where you vote for a local representative and also a party. There are a fixed number of local representatives and the rest of the 120 available seats are made up by the total party vote. So if you won 10 seats but 25% of the party vote you would have 10 representatives and 20 list/party MP's. It has also worked very well to give third parties more power and help keep the two main parties closer to the political center.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>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. Optimize the variance of election outcomes. If pundits and such can't predict how the election will go, then and only then can we say voters really spoke.
bbctol 10y ago
This is a real problem as it intersects with race; a lot of civil rights advocacy in the 60s promoted racial district packing, so that sizeable African-American minorities could have their own representation. This is in the Voting Rights Act... kinda (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-supreme-court-tackles-the-political-riddle-of-race-based-gerrymandering/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-supreme-court-tackl...) In the long run, I think it's an argument for an unusual form of proportional representation.
Terr_ 10y ago
The most important and immediate change is to create an objective system, one which takes away direct-drawing from humans... because that's where the vast majority of unethical damage occurs. Sure, algorithms can embed their own assumptions, but at least they'll be applied consistently based on known data. It's a "perfect is the enemy of good" kinda thing.

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.

specialist 10y ago
Demographics is politics.

specialist 10y ago

The most fair is the arrangement which maximizes voter choice.

Taek 10y ago

Well, ideally everyone is proportionally represented at every level of government. So you'd want a 5/4 split at the top level, where each person has a representative that they like. You'd almost want gerrymandering, but of a different sort. Traditional gerrymandering makes some districts win by 100/0 and the rest lose 49/51 to marginalize as many people as possible. But perhaps more fair would be perfect gerrymandering - every district ends up with a 100/0 split. This means you get 5/4 at the top level, while every citizen is represented by someone they voted for. Districts end up as more of an overlapping blur.

physicalist 10y ago
You want even more partisanship? bc that would be the logical outcome.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  Yeah, those 100/0 districts are not going to be "in play", as the saying is - they're not going to be a competitive race, ever. That means that all the action will be in the primary. (Of course, with a 100/0 district, maybe that's appropriate...)

cabalamat 10y ago

> Roughly speaking, what is most fair? A 5/4 district split? Or, each district being 55-45, i.e. 9/0? Neither, don't have single-member districts, use PR.

euyyn 10y ago

In Spain many are proposing to get rid of districts altogether, because they severely penalize parties that aren't the two biggest (except regionalistic parties). And this is in a country where the system actually allows third parties to get seats in Congress (even if harder) - the American system is very very ill of bipartidism. Congress should be 1 person 1 vote, no matter your political preference or where you live.

knz 10y ago
New Zealand has Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) where you vote for a local representative and also a party. There are a fixed number of local representatives and the rest of the 120 available seats are made up by the total party vote. So if you won 10 seats but 25% of the party vote you would have 10 representatives and 20 list/party MP's. It has also worked very well to give third parties more power and help keep the two main parties closer to the political center.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

>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. Optimize the variance of election outcomes. If pundits and such can't predict how the election will go, then and only then can we say voters really spoke.

bbctol 10y ago

This is a real problem as it intersects with race; a lot of civil rights advocacy in the 60s promoted racial district packing, so that sizeable African-American minorities could have their own representation. This is in the Voting Rights Act... kinda (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-supreme-court-tackles-the-political-riddle-of-race-based-gerrymandering/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-supreme-court-tackl...) In the long run, I think it's an argument for an unusual form of proportional representation.

Terr_ 10y ago

The most important and immediate change is to create an objective system, one which takes away direct-drawing from humans... because that's where the vast majority of unethical damage occurs. Sure, algorithms can embed their own assumptions, but at least they'll be applied consistently based on known data. It's a "perfect is the enemy of good" kinda thing.