6 ms·

If you read the article, it says there are actually two types of gerrymandering. One is "packing" all of a voting block together, and the other is "cracking" a

by lacker 9y ago

If you read the article, it says there are actually two types of gerrymandering. One is "packing" all of a voting block together, and the other is "cracking" a voting block into multiple districts so that it can't win in any of them.

ouid 9y ago
and somehow, neither of these strategies are "making your own seats more secure"
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  The first one is.
  - ouid 9y ago
    no, it is making your opponent's seat more secure.
    - thaumasiotes 9y ago
      Think about it for more than half a second. Moving a Democrat into a Democratic district makes that district's Democratic seat more secure. At the same time, moving that Democrat out of your district makes your Republican seat more secure. You can't do one without the other.
      - ouid 9y ago
        Probability of victory is highly non-linear in the proportion of voters. It's so non-linear that it makes sense to treat it as a phase transition. A district is secure when the outcome is certain. There are two distinct phases where the outcome is "secure" and the border between these two phases is, because of the non-linearity, very small. That is what secure means to most people. The specific language that the OC, and almost all journalism uses to describe the strategy is "making districts more secure". The only way to interpret that, in the context of the phase definition of security, is adding voter proportion to a district which is already secure. This is never in the interest of the party that it is happening to, so yes, it is dishonest to describe it this way.
        thaumasiotes 9y ago
        As I just pointed out to you, it can never happen to one party without simultaneously happening to the other party. Packing Democrats into an already-secure Democratic district adds Democratic voter proportion to their district and adds Republican voter proportion to yours. If you don't believe that this can be in the interest of either party (since it's happening "to" both of them), you don't have much left to complain about.
- taejo 9y ago
  A seat can be secure at 55% just as it can be at 95%. Packing and cracking both tend to yield secure seats - if nobody could confidently predict who would win the seats, how would it be gerrymandering?

by lacker 9y ago

ouid 9y ago

and somehow, neither of these strategies are "making your own seats more secure"

thaumasiotes 9y ago
The first one is.
- ouid 9y ago
  no, it is making your opponent's seat more secure.
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    Think about it for more than half a second. Moving a Democrat into a Democratic district makes that district's Democratic seat more secure. At the same time, moving that Democrat out of your district makes your Republican seat more secure. You can't do one without the other.
    - ouid 9y ago
      Probability of victory is highly non-linear in the proportion of voters. It's so non-linear that it makes sense to treat it as a phase transition. A district is secure when the outcome is certain. There are two distinct phases where the outcome is "secure" and the border between these two phases is, because of the non-linearity, very small. That is what secure means to most people. The specific language that the OC, and almost all journalism uses to describe the strategy is "making districts more secure". The only way to interpret that, in the context of the phase definition of security, is adding voter proportion to a district which is already secure. This is never in the interest of the party that it is happening to, so yes, it is dishonest to describe it this way.
      - thaumasiotes 9y ago
        As I just pointed out to you, it can never happen to one party without simultaneously happening to the other party. Packing Democrats into an already-secure Democratic district adds Democratic voter proportion to their district and adds Republican voter proportion to yours. If you don't believe that this can be in the interest of either party (since it's happening "to" both of them), you don't have much left to complain about.
taejo 9y ago
A seat can be secure at 55% just as it can be at 95%. Packing and cracking both tend to yield secure seats - if nobody could confidently predict who would win the seats, how would it be gerrymandering?