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It doesn't matter if it's unlikely, the point is that the efficiency gap is being proposed as a measure of partisan gerrymandering, but it clearly does not do w
by phailhaus 9y ago
It doesn't matter if it's unlikely, the point is that the efficiency gap is being proposed as a measure of partisan gerrymandering, but it clearly does not do what it claims because it thinks a state with all districts split 75-25 is fair. But it's not: one party is getting 25% of the votes but 0% of the seats.
- snarf21 9y agoI'm agreeing with you that a case like this isn't being fairly measured by this gap. I'm not trolling but the likeliness does play into it. This case is not much of a concern if it has never happened in any state in US history, e.g. I think there are other things that can be done to make it even harder to create all 75-25 like saying all districts must have a size or density or .... that is within a standard deviation (or two?) of the mean. I don't know what the right math is offhand but something like this adds another constraint.
- phailhaus 9y agoMy point is that there's clearly something missing if a 75-25 split is measured as 0 net wasted votes. That means that the efficiency gap treats 75-25 as the "perfect election", and is actually measuring how far any given district election is from that "ideal". Even worse, that means that if we actually use the efficiency gap to measure gerrymandering, then there is a strong incentive for parties to draw district lines to be as close to 75-25 as possible!