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> > There are many mathematical ways to detect “unreasonable” gerrymandering. > But what does that mean? > Suppose you have a state with four districts and th

> > 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 2y 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.

AnthonyMouse 2y 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.