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There are many mathematical ways to detect “unreasonable” gerrymandering. The efficiency gap[1] is one way although SCOTUS rejected it. Harvard put out a tool t

There are many mathematical ways to detect “unreasonable” gerrymandering. The efficiency gap[1] is one way although SCOTUS rejected it. Harvard put out a tool to generate districts in a non-partisan way [2]. Other states instead use non-partisan boards to build the maps instead of letting the party in power do it. There’s a world of difference between “no correct way” and partisan gerrymandering and for some reason people like to pretend that because there’s no correct way, partisan gerrymandering is the only other solution. As for the racism involved, you’d have to be intentionally ignoring all history to pretend that this is just because minority populations prefer Democrats, especially given that the players involved on the Republican side are pretty explicit in their private communications that manage to leak that it’s about race and protecting the white vote. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/03/upshot/how-the-new-math-of-gerrymandering-works-supreme-court.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/03/upshot/how-th... [2] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/11/an-algorithm-to-detect-gerrymandering/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/11/an-algorithm-...

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> There are many mathematical ways to detect “unreasonable” gerrymandering. But what does that mean? Suppose you have a state with four districts and the state as a whole goes for one party by 60-40. You could then draw four districts that are all 60-40 and that party gets every district in the state. Is that unreasonable? It's what you would expect to happen if the state is fairly uniform and you draw the lines completely at random or using a method that otherwise doesn't consider how each neighborhood is expected to vote whatsoever. Or you could draw two districts that are 20-80 and two more that are 100-0, and then each party gets half of the state, which is the number of districts you would expect based on a 60-40 split because 60-40 is closer to 50-50 than it is to 75-25. Is that unreasonable? Or you could try to minimize the number of safe seats where representatives don't have to be responsive to voters because they can't lose. The majority party would still have one, but then the other three districts would be around 50-50, with the possible result that the minority party could get 3 of 4 seats. Is that unreasonable? There is no "correct" way to do it. Each party is going to want the one where they get more seats. > As for the racism involved, you’d have to be intentionally ignoring all history to pretend that this is just because minority populations prefer Democrats, especially given that the players involved on the Republican side are pretty explicit in their private communications that manage to leak that it’s about race and protecting the white vote. You're linking to things that don't actually say this. When drawing the districts they have maps where the race of the constituents is known. Certainly so do Democrats. But for this to be their actual motive -- and for it to have any consequence over their stated motive -- they would have to be choosing it instead of some alternative map which is better for them in terms of seats but worse in terms of something like "white representation", e.g. they prefer a district map that would result in two white Democrats over one black Democrat and the other seat going to themselves. Whereas drawing a map that maximizes the number of their own seats over any other consideration is an obvious demonstration of what they really care about.
- cycomanic 3y ago
  > > There are many mathematical ways to detect “unreasonable” gerrymandering. > But what does that mean? > Suppose you have a state with four districts and the state as a whole goes for one party by 60-40. You could then draw four districts that are all 60-40 and that party gets every district in the state. Is that unreasonable? It's what you would expect to happen if the state is fairly uniform and you draw the lines completely at random or using a method that otherwise doesn't consider how each neighborhood is expected to vote whatsoever. I'm not sure if you're being genuine in your question, but a reasonable distribution should mean that all votes have approximately the same value, i.e. they have the same influence on the overall outcome of the vote. That's one of the central pillars of democracy. For your example, drawing districts such that the 40% minority wins 3 of the 4 seats would be considered unreasonable by the majority of people. This is also not an artificial example but outcomes like the above is exactly what parties are trying to achieve with gerrymandering.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    But this is exactly what I mean. People don't even agree on what "reasonable" is. The map you're calling unreasonable is the one where both parties have an even chance at all three of those seats. Someone else will be telling me that the map where the 60% majority gets 100% of the seats is unreasonable because they should only get half of the seats since 60% is closer to 50% than 75%, much less 100%. Then someone will say that the map where each party always gets half the seats is unreasonable because then it's four safe seats and none under contention, which removes democratic accountability from the representatives in both parties. The actual problem here is first past the post voting, which results in a two party system. You can't gerrymander STAR voting because drawing a moderate district would result in a moderate candidate instead of the district going to whichever extreme gets 51% of the vote in a two horse race.
- vlovich123 3y ago
  The efficiency gap metric argues that you should minimize the amount of “wasted” votes which in essence means maximize the number of competitive seats. That seems like a really reasonable approach whereas any other approach results in mechanisms that are advantageous to incumbent parties instead of improving the democratic process so that the parties are responsive to their constituents. Basically any process where the parties are picking their voters is an unreasonable gerrymander and undemocratic. As for the racial discussion, it kind of doesn’t matter. Partisan gerrymandering is also unconstitutional. SCOTUS has just deemed it to be an unsolvable issue rather than trying to actually put safeguards in place.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> There are many mathematical ways to detect “unreasonable” gerrymandering. But what does that mean? Suppose you have a state with four districts and the state as a whole goes for one party by 60-40. You could then draw four districts that are all 60-40 and that party gets every district in the state. Is that unreasonable? It's what you would expect to happen if the state is fairly uniform and you draw the lines completely at random or using a method that otherwise doesn't consider how each neighborhood is expected to vote whatsoever. Or you could draw two districts that are 20-80 and two more that are 100-0, and then each party gets half of the state, which is the number of districts you would expect based on a 60-40 split because 60-40 is closer to 50-50 than it is to 75-25. Is that unreasonable? Or you could try to minimize the number of safe seats where representatives don't have to be responsive to voters because they can't lose. The majority party would still have one, but then the other three districts would be around 50-50, with the possible result that the minority party could get 3 of 4 seats. Is that unreasonable? There is no "correct" way to do it. Each party is going to want the one where they get more seats. > As for the racism involved, you’d have to be intentionally ignoring all history to pretend that this is just because minority populations prefer Democrats, especially given that the players involved on the Republican side are pretty explicit in their private communications that manage to leak that it’s about race and protecting the white vote. You're linking to things that don't actually say this. When drawing the districts they have maps where the race of the constituents is known. Certainly so do Democrats. But for this to be their actual motive -- and for it to have any consequence over their stated motive -- they would have to be choosing it instead of some alternative map which is better for them in terms of seats but worse in terms of something like "white representation", e.g. they prefer a district map that would result in two white Democrats over one black Democrat and the other seat going to themselves. Whereas drawing a map that maximizes the number of their own seats over any other consideration is an obvious demonstration of what they really care about.

cycomanic 3y ago
> > There are many mathematical ways to detect “unreasonable” gerrymandering. > But what does that mean? > Suppose you have a state with four districts and the state as a whole goes for one party by 60-40. You could then draw four districts that are all 60-40 and that party gets every district in the state. Is that unreasonable? It's what you would expect to happen if the state is fairly uniform and you draw the lines completely at random or using a method that otherwise doesn't consider how each neighborhood is expected to vote whatsoever. I'm not sure if you're being genuine in your question, but a reasonable distribution should mean that all votes have approximately the same value, i.e. they have the same influence on the overall outcome of the vote. That's one of the central pillars of democracy. For your example, drawing districts such that the 40% minority wins 3 of the 4 seats would be considered unreasonable by the majority of people. This is also not an artificial example but outcomes like the above is exactly what parties are trying to achieve with gerrymandering.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  But this is exactly what I mean. People don't even agree on what "reasonable" is. The map you're calling unreasonable is the one where both parties have an even chance at all three of those seats. Someone else will be telling me that the map where the 60% majority gets 100% of the seats is unreasonable because they should only get half of the seats since 60% is closer to 50% than 75%, much less 100%. Then someone will say that the map where each party always gets half the seats is unreasonable because then it's four safe seats and none under contention, which removes democratic accountability from the representatives in both parties. The actual problem here is first past the post voting, which results in a two party system. You can't gerrymander STAR voting because drawing a moderate district would result in a moderate candidate instead of the district going to whichever extreme gets 51% of the vote in a two horse race.
vlovich123 3y ago
The efficiency gap metric argues that you should minimize the amount of “wasted” votes which in essence means maximize the number of competitive seats. That seems like a really reasonable approach whereas any other approach results in mechanisms that are advantageous to incumbent parties instead of improving the democratic process so that the parties are responsive to their constituents. Basically any process where the parties are picking their voters is an unreasonable gerrymander and undemocratic. As for the racial discussion, it kind of doesn’t matter. Partisan gerrymandering is also unconstitutional. SCOTUS has just deemed it to be an unsolvable issue rather than trying to actually put safeguards in place.