4 ms·

An issue for proposals that seek to ban gerrymandering is that it is quite difficult to quantify and measure how "gerrymandered" a particular district is, since

An issue for proposals that seek to ban gerrymandering is that it is quite difficult to quantify and measure how "gerrymandered" a particular district is, since it all depends on what your goal is. Are you trying to do blind population representation? Are you trying to "groups" of people (for some definition of "group"), etc. FiveThirtyEight did a good podcast series on gerrymandering that discusses a lot of these problems (and potential solutions to them): https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/the-gerrymandering-project/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/the-gerrymandering-project/

ceejayoz 7y ago
You'll get edge cases, but in a lot of gerrymandering situations it's clear enough even if it can't be perfectly quantified. We've got SCOTUS precedent for this sort of thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
- rtkwe 7y ago
  SCOTUS recently said partisan gerrymanders were non-justiciable which as far as I can tell basically shuts the book on it until the balance on the court changes.
  - lalaithion 7y ago
    If congress passes a law that says "Partisan gerrymandering is illegal, the courts can determine if a district is gerrymandered", then that would be enough to make partisan gerrymanders justiciable.
    - sdenton4 7y ago
      Not exactly. There's still state-by-state work happening on this front, which can still make a big difference. And there's hope: Voting fairness is something that the republican voters seem to respond to, even as their representatives seek to claw it back, as the case in Florida nicely illustrates.
esarbe 7y ago
Relevant paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.02064.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.02064.pdf
henrikschroder 7y ago
Gerrymandering is only possible in first-past-the-post systems, if you have several mandates per district, the problem goes away completely. Another nice side-effect is that proportional representation breaks the two-party system.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  You don't even need proportional representation, which brings its own separate set of problems. Just use approval voting or range voting. That destroys the two party system by itself, which in turn destroys gerrymandering because then local parties or independent candidates can adapt to how the lines are drawn regardless of how you draw them.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> Are you trying to do blind population representation? Are you trying to "groups" of people (for some definition of "group"), etc. This interacts especially poorly with first past the post. Suppose you have a state which is 60% Republican and has 10 districts. Do you draw 10 districts that are each 60% Republican? Then the Republicans may get all 10 seats, but in theory the Democrats at least have a chance in any given district, so nobody can do anything too outrageous or they could still be ousted. Whereas if you draw the districts along party lines then you get 6 Republicans and 4 Democrats but they're all safe seats which means that nobody is really accountable to the voters anymore. Switch to range voting and the problem goes away, because two closely aligned candidates no longer split the vote which means there is no longer any such thing as a safe seat, nor can one side or the other claim disproportionately many seats because more closely balanced districts would elect centrists.

ceejayoz 7y ago

You'll get edge cases, but in a lot of gerrymandering situations it's clear enough even if it can't be perfectly quantified. We've got SCOTUS precedent for this sort of thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

rtkwe 7y ago
SCOTUS recently said partisan gerrymanders were non-justiciable which as far as I can tell basically shuts the book on it until the balance on the court changes.
- lalaithion 7y ago
  If congress passes a law that says "Partisan gerrymandering is illegal, the courts can determine if a district is gerrymandered", then that would be enough to make partisan gerrymanders justiciable.
  - sdenton4 7y ago
    Not exactly. There's still state-by-state work happening on this front, which can still make a big difference. And there's hope: Voting fairness is something that the republican voters seem to respond to, even as their representatives seek to claw it back, as the case in Florida nicely illustrates.

esarbe 7y ago

Relevant paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.02064.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.02064.pdf

henrikschroder 7y ago

Gerrymandering is only possible in first-past-the-post systems, if you have several mandates per district, the problem goes away completely. Another nice side-effect is that proportional representation breaks the two-party system.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
You don't even need proportional representation, which brings its own separate set of problems. Just use approval voting or range voting. That destroys the two party system by itself, which in turn destroys gerrymandering because then local parties or independent candidates can adapt to how the lines are drawn regardless of how you draw them.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> Are you trying to do blind population representation? Are you trying to "groups" of people (for some definition of "group"), etc. This interacts especially poorly with first past the post. Suppose you have a state which is 60% Republican and has 10 districts. Do you draw 10 districts that are each 60% Republican? Then the Republicans may get all 10 seats, but in theory the Democrats at least have a chance in any given district, so nobody can do anything too outrageous or they could still be ousted. Whereas if you draw the districts along party lines then you get 6 Republicans and 4 Democrats but they're all safe seats which means that nobody is really accountable to the voters anymore. Switch to range voting and the problem goes away, because two closely aligned candidates no longer split the vote which means there is no longer any such thing as a safe seat, nor can one side or the other claim disproportionately many seats because more closely balanced districts would elect centrists.