Re: [EM] Redistricting, now with racial demographics
--- On Mon, 7/20/09, Raph Frank raph...@gmail.com wrote: I would think that presetting the desired boundaries would avoid that. Pre-set boundaries have the disadvantage that the lead to imbalances in the voter to seat ratios. A 5 seat district could have a population of anywhere between 4.5 and 5.5 of the national average (roughly). This gives a potential imbalance of +/- 10%. I didn't mean presetting the entire shape of any district, just the line along whatever geographic or cultural divide we think districts shouldn't cross. The program will draw the other lines to equalize population and maximize whichever value (compactness, distance from the geographical center, travel time, etc.) we make our standard for good districts. Ofc, if the districts are very large, then this is less of an issue. Also, the elimination of gerrymandering might be worth the slight imbalance. The imbalance is worst when the districts are small. One option is to have a process for combining smaller districts. For example, any district which has less than 5 seats is combined with a neighbour. Once that is done, any district with more than 12 seats is split in 2 so that each part has at least 5 seats. Ofc, that would like not be acceptable in the US, assuming by district, you mean State. I mean geographical divisions that exist solely to designate which voters will fill a seat or set of seats. A state may also serve that function, but that's not the reason it exists. Your intuition is right: merging and splitting states to create a desired magnitude (in the House elections, presumably) wouldn't be acceptable to the general public, because that's not what states are for. Actually, I don't really see much to be gained from it even in situations where the designer has a free hand to set district lines. It seems better to me to equalize the magnitudes and adjust the lines (or draw them de novo after every census) to keep them equal. In the context of House elections in America that's complicated by the fact that each state is apportioned a number of Representatives based on population, but within each state the districts could be of the same magnitude, with any remainder elected at-large. (Although at the current size of the House most states won't even need districts to use standard STV.) [if both used PR-STV] I see no reason for having two houses, in that case. It probably depends on how you do it. In the US, you could in principle elect the 2 Senators using PR-STV and the N Representatives using PR-STV. This would mean that there is still an imbalance between the 2 Houses, due to the population imbalance between the States. Another option is longer terms. For example, you could expand the terms for the Senate. If you elected 5 Senators by PR-STV, every 2 years, for a 20 year term, then that would give you a 50 member Senate. The House could also be elected by PR-STV, but as a single block. The effect would be that the Senate is more stable (as it is the average viewpoint over a 20 year period), while the House would be a snap-shot. Also, at any time at most 10% of the Senate would be seeking re-election, so it would be less subject to short terrm election planning. Ofc, with 20 year terms, many Senators would probably just seek 1 term. This may lead to the Senate being considered old and wise or maybe just massively corrupt due to the lack of having to stand for re-election. In Ireland, the Seanad doesn't have veto powers over legislation. It only has the ability to delay legislation for 180 days. It isn't actually very powerful anyway, as the Government has the right to appoint 11 members (out of 60), so they always have a majority in the Seanad (though at the moment, their majority is zero, so they rely on the Chairman's casting vote). I would also add a rule that Senators and Representatives can't become members of the other House for at least 5 years after they have left their original house. This is to try to encourage different types of people to stand for each House. That's an interesting idea, although I doubt many American voters would be willing to accept such long terms. Perhaps something like that, combined with a power to veto legislation or at least call early elections for Commons, would be a suitable reform (or replacement) for the the House of Lords in the UK. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Redistricting, now with racial demographics
--- On Sun, 7/19/09, James Gilmour jgilm...@globalnet.co.uk wrote: You may be interested to know that the Boundary Commission for Scotland experimented with some computer-based algorithms for drawing district boundaries when fed the geographical locations of all our electors. They abandoned them all because they found it was taking longer to tidy up the machine-produced boundaries than it would to do the whole job manually by sensible amalgamations of postal units (very small) on a good GIS. The minimising algorithms have difficulty recognising and accommodating the physical features like mountains and uncrossable rivers, which as Kathy pointed out, must be taken properly into account in looking for sensible boundaries. Incidentally, our Boundary Commissions are all independent of the politicians, so we don't have the incumbent problem that is endemic in the USA and completely distorts the whole system. I would think that presetting the desired boundaries would avoid that. And I have this notion that it would be good to have a bicameral legislature with one house elected at-large PR and one elected from single member locality districts. I thought you already had a bicameral legislature, together with a separation of powers for the Executive? Yes, but both houses are elected with single member plurality. This is true at the federal level and, as far as I know, in 49 of the states. The one exception has a single chamber elected using single-member plurality districts. The main problem with electing one house by PR and the other house from single-member districts is that, no matter what voting system you use within the single-member districts, that house will not be properly representative of the voters, in contrast to the PR house. I don't know how long the electors would tolerate that, especially if there were real differences of political representation in the two houses and both houses were of similar power in the overall political system. At the federal level the Senate is elected with no reference to population, so that Wyoming and California have the same representation. This is actually entrenched in the Constitution in such a way that it would be easiler to abolish the Senate entirely than to introduce any form of proportionality into it. And this is accepted by almost everybody. I suspect that as long as both chambers are elected the public will accept it, and in the event of serious differences of perspective between the two a substantial part of public opinion will be more in favor of the conflict itself than either side. We like checks and balances, after all. I would just elect both houses by STV-PR but form the districts on a different basis, which should be easy if the upper house had fewer members than the lower house. I see no reason for having two houses, in that case. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Redistricting, now with racial demographics
As this isn't something I really want it's going to be hard to get motivated to work it out. That said I think the way to go about it is to make unbiased districts by my current district, then pick one district with the highest proportion of the desired minority to elevate and adjust all the districts until that one has a majority of the desired minority. Repeat one district at a time until there are enough (some states require two or three I think). On Jul 16, 2009, at 6:46 PM, Raph Frank wrote: Are you considering updating the algorithm to include majority minority districts? This would potentially decrease the legal issues with using it for districting. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Redistricting, now with racial demographics
If one of the requirements is to secure representation within a state for the significant (racial) minorities within that state, would it not make much more sense to start with a voting system that had such an objective rather than engage in deliberate distortion of district boundaries in an attempt to overcome the deficiencies of a voting system designed for a completely different purpose? James Gilmour Brian Olson Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2009 2:39 PM As this isn't something I really want it's going to be hard to get motivated to work it out. That said I think the way to go about it is to make unbiased districts by my current district, then pick one district with the highest proportion of the desired minority to elevate and adjust all the districts until that one has a majority of the desired minority. Repeat one district at a time until there are enough (some states require two or three I think). On Jul 16, 2009, at 6:46 PM, Raph Frank wrote: Are you considering updating the algorithm to include majority minority districts? This would potentially decrease the legal issues with using it for districting. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.392 / Virus Database: 270.13.19/2245 - Release Date: 07/18/09 05:57:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Redistricting, now with racial demographics
On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 3:11 AM, Raph Frankraph...@gmail.com wrote: From the link: (i) has equal population districts to within 0.5%; and Sounds reasonable, as the error in the census is likely higher. However, the Supreme Court might object. They have ruled that equal population is essential. I don't know. I suppose this needs legal research and research into what exists now. (ii) utilizes natural and geographic boundaries and barriers in the creation of district boundaries; and This requires a definition of both. Yes. Perhaps, but natural geographic boundaries are crucially important to pay attention to when drawing districts because huge mountains or large impassable rivers, etc. are real barriers that affect transportation, often affect existing political boundaries and therefore affect how easy a district would be not only to serve, but to administer. (iii) utilizes existing government boundaries (in particular election administration boundaries such as county boundaries) in the creation of district boundaries; and (iv) minimizes the sum of all the perimeters of all the districts (produces compact districts); and (v) minimizes the ratio of the number of uniquely administered districts to the number of election jurisdictions (to reduce election administration complexity.) Since the number of districts is constant, I am not sure you need a ratio here. Yes, but the number of separately administered districts that are split by the number of jurisdictions can be very large, especially with gerrymandering or with any redistricting plan that does not consider this important issue. Election officials will be much more supportive of districting plans that minimize the complexities of election administration like this simple ratio helps to do. Let each political party draw up district maps and the winning map would be the one that: You could extend it to anyone. Yes. And I like that idea. 1. has a minimum sum of perimeters, and 2. has the minimum ratio of the number of uniquely administered districts to the number of election jurisdictions (for administrative simplicity. (these two conditions can be equally weighted), and that meets the other three conditions. How do you equal weight these? Condition 1 gives a length and Condition 2 gives a ratio. That's true. Hmmm. I suppose that there are several methods of using these two measures to give a score to a submitted plan. Both numbers could be normalized using the same scale (say 0 to 1 or 0 to 10) in comparison with the same measures for all the other submitted plans for instance. I can't think of a better way currently, but there may be some. You could convert 1 into a ratio by saying something like Ratio of sum of perimeters to the perimeter of the state. Oh. That is interesting and something like that might work well because it provides a concrete measure for comparison. Still, it would still need some adjustment to work with the measure of administrative complexity because the two ratios do not have the same range on the same scale. Another option is that you could redefine the rule as: the winning map is the one that: - has the minimum ratio of the number of uniquely administered districts to the number of election jurisdictions (but only one map might meet this condition, in which case no further test would be needed and that map would win, thereby undoing our concern for compact districts.) and - where the sum of the perimeters is at most 5% larger than the valid map with the lowest sum of perimeters. and - where the boundaries follow valid boundaries as defined prior to the census Does the census define mountain ranges, etc.? Here in Utah two towns may be very close as the crow flies, but take many hours to drive between in the winter (and sometimes in the summer too) due to having to drive all the way around the mountain ranges -- and same thing can be true of close towns separated by rivers with very infrequent bridges over them. and - where the population of the lowest population district is at least 95% of the population of the highest population district I don't know if that would be legally acceptable and is common practice or not. Perhaps you've researched this more than I have. Are election admin areas defined as part of the map, i.e. does the person submit maps for all elections (State+local+Federal) + how they should be administered? Election administration areas are defined differently in each state already and generally do not change much over time. In most states counties are the jurisdictions, but in some states in New England townships administer elections, in LA parishes (equivalent to counties) do. Otherwise, I think that by defining admin areas, you could defacto gerrymander, as the best maps would have to follow those boundaries. That is what the ratio measure is for, to try to minimize election administration
[EM] Redistricting, now with racial demographics
I've updated my redistricting site ( http://bolson.org/dist/ ) to include the racial breakdown of all current congressional districts (sometimes interesting by itself) and that of the compactness based districts I have come up with. If you want you can jump directly to http://bolson.org/dist/ XX where XX is any US state abbreviation. Brian Olson http://bolson.org/ Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
