I may have underestimated the time some, but it should and would not take
weeks or months and have all of the lawsuits and such. I would use census
blocks or block groups. Determine how many people are in the state. Find
out how many districts to create. Divide to get a pop. per district to aim
for and start combining. Then use redistrict tool to fine tune. It should
not matter who is close by or what percentage is rich or poor, what color
they are. That is truly the only fair way. Someone like me in downstate
Illinois is not going to know which area is what in Chicago. Anyone
interested in doing their own state using the 2000 census block groups and
then comparing the file to what the government will do with congressional
districts just to see how bad they really screw it up? If there is
interest, maybe we could store them at Directions Magazines' site. Or is
this not worth the time?
Mike
> I bet you couldn't do it in an hour. The problem has to do with
> how to define "fair." You have to draw boundaries that are
> "compact" (and there's at least two legal definitions of that),
> and you have to as close as possible create evenly populated
> districts. Then there's the issue of what "evenly populated"
> means in terms of demographics. Imagine a small region with half
> the population in the north half of the circle being
> welfare-dependent, poorly educated Elois. On the south are the
> rich, technically advanced but morally bankrupt Morlocks. Do you
> draw the boundary so as to politically separate them or do you
> draw it so that each region in that area is represented by a mix?
>
> Of course, if you only need to please one interest group, the
> process is simple, and maybe it could be done in an hour. Maybe
> that would be a good idea to try it once, because the resulting
> howl might wake up the voting public and show them clearly that
> they get the government they deserve.
>
> - Bill Thoen
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>
>
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