3 ms·

Population distribution is discovered through census data. That is what is used for redistricting. Not the previous election.

harryh 9y ago
If all you have to go on is population distribution you wouldn't be able to effectively gerrymander. You don't need to just know how people are distributed, you need to know who they are likely to vote for in an election.
- John23832 9y ago
  > You don't need to just know how people are distributed, you need to know who they are likely to vote for in an election. That's not how gerrymandering is used. Gerrymandering as a practice targets minorities. It's based on (highly) educated guesses. You take a minority population center and draw the district lines through it, bisecting the voting power of the population. What would be one whole voting block in one district is not split over N districts (N districts with large Republican populations). Minorities are more likely to vote (D)emocrat. Republicans get so few minority votes that it doesn't matter where a republican minority votes. Their vote is good in any district. Going back to the census, if you don' have adequate funding for the census, then some districts will be underfunded. Underfunding generally means an undercount, not an over count. If you underfund (and undercount) minority districts it's easier to redraw the districting lines to break up the minority district and include them in the surrounding districts.
  - BurningFrog 9y ago
    That was maybe gerrymandering before computerization. Today we have software with good block by block data. From http://www.salon.com/2016/06/13/this_is_how_the_gop_rigged_congress_the_secret_plan_that_handcuffed_obamas_presidency_but_backfired_in_donald_trump/ http://www.salon.com/2016/06/13/this_is_how_the_gop_rigged_c... "The smart set that denies this also doesn’t understand how profoundly the technology changed between 2000 and 2010, let alone between 1990 and 2010. In 1990 and even in 2000, the computers and the data sets were primitive. In some cases, they were still laying out actual parchment maps and using markers. By 2010, programs like Maptitude–and all of the public data sets that are available, as well as private data sets that the parties can purchase and add on to Maptitude–made it as easy as clicking a mouse to shift a line one block in any direction. And the data was so good, and our partisanship had hardened in such a way as to make it pretty clear how individual blocks vote, that you could see how shifting the lines would likely shift the results. As a result, you can draw districts so precisely that they might even look like competitive 51-49 districts, but they can still be reliable partisan performers. It is a completely different world. The Republicans know this. The Democrats and the media are still catching up."

harryh 9y ago

If all you have to go on is population distribution you wouldn't be able to effectively gerrymander. You don't need to just know how people are distributed, you need to know who they are likely to vote for in an election.

John23832 9y ago
> You don't need to just know how people are distributed, you need to know who they are likely to vote for in an election. That's not how gerrymandering is used. Gerrymandering as a practice targets minorities. It's based on (highly) educated guesses. You take a minority population center and draw the district lines through it, bisecting the voting power of the population. What would be one whole voting block in one district is not split over N districts (N districts with large Republican populations). Minorities are more likely to vote (D)emocrat. Republicans get so few minority votes that it doesn't matter where a republican minority votes. Their vote is good in any district. Going back to the census, if you don' have adequate funding for the census, then some districts will be underfunded. Underfunding generally means an undercount, not an over count. If you underfund (and undercount) minority districts it's easier to redraw the districting lines to break up the minority district and include them in the surrounding districts.
- BurningFrog 9y ago
  That was maybe gerrymandering before computerization. Today we have software with good block by block data. From http://www.salon.com/2016/06/13/this_is_how_the_gop_rigged_congress_the_secret_plan_that_handcuffed_obamas_presidency_but_backfired_in_donald_trump/ http://www.salon.com/2016/06/13/this_is_how_the_gop_rigged_c... "The smart set that denies this also doesn’t understand how profoundly the technology changed between 2000 and 2010, let alone between 1990 and 2010. In 1990 and even in 2000, the computers and the data sets were primitive. In some cases, they were still laying out actual parchment maps and using markers. By 2010, programs like Maptitude–and all of the public data sets that are available, as well as private data sets that the parties can purchase and add on to Maptitude–made it as easy as clicking a mouse to shift a line one block in any direction. And the data was so good, and our partisanship had hardened in such a way as to make it pretty clear how individual blocks vote, that you could see how shifting the lines would likely shift the results. As a result, you can draw districts so precisely that they might even look like competitive 51-49 districts, but they can still be reliable partisan performers. It is a completely different world. The Republicans know this. The Democrats and the media are still catching up."