Dave's Redistricting App

[jimrtex]

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I don't think Missouri has to comply with VRA. So which district did you hack into pieces?

Everybody has to comply with Section 2 Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.  For example the DOJ has recently filed a complaint regarding the at-large election of members of the Euclid, OH school district (and a few years ago had filed a similar action against the city of Euclid).

If you were to split St. Louis city and St. Louis County among 3 districts extending out into the suburbs - even it produced 3 Democratic seats, they would consider what would happen in primaries (eg say Dick Gephardt vs. William Clay or their successors).

You might get by with a two-way split, as long as there was no question that one of the districts was going to be the Black district.   A similar split in Kansas City probably would not be approved since you could end up with two Republican districts.

Only certain areas are subject to Section 5, where any change in voting regulations must be pre-cleared by the DOJ (or the federal court in DC).

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act

The main difference is that under Section 2 the plaintiff has to prove the violation by the State (or its subdivision), whereas under Section 5, the State has to demonstrate that its changes in laws have no negative effect.

If Section 5 is overturned by the Supreme Court, I would expect that Congress would simply extend its application to the entire country, rather than trying to justify its arbitrary coverage area.

[jimrtex]

You might get by with a two-way split, as long as there was no question that one of the districts was going to be the Black district.   A similar split in Kansas City probably would not be approved since you could end up with two Republican districts.

Republicans can do whatever they want to Jackson County without regard for VRA or partisanship. 5th district demographics: 68.8% White, 24.4% Black, 1.3% Asian, 5.6% Hispanic, 0.5% Native American, 0.4% other. The representative is African-American, but the constituency does not come close to any levels that would merit protection to avoid retrogression.

I don't know if you could gerrymander away the possibility of a Democratic district from the region.

Let's say you brought a finger from MO-4 into KC.  And if not at the congressional level, there would likely be application of Section 2 for legislative or city council districts.

[jimrtex]

If Section 5 is overturned by the Supreme Court, I would expect that Congress would simply extend its application to the entire country, rather than trying to justify its arbitrary coverage area.

I can not imagine that enough representatives would willingly impose these procedures on their local governments, given that local elected officials are among the people with best access to representatives and could all agree on opposing them.

If your alternatives are:

(1) No Section 5.
(2) Universal coverage under Section 5.
(3) Selective coverage under Section 5 based on objective standard (eg only Hawaii qualifies)

Which are you going to choose?

[jimrtex]

(1) No Section 5.
(2) Universal coverage under Section 5.
(3) Selective coverage under Section 5 based on objective standard (eg only Hawaii qualifies)

Which are you going to choose?

(1) has the advantage of being the path of least resistance because it involves no legislative action. Are there 218 legislators who are going to vote to impose Section 5 coverage on their local officials vs. 218 legislators who are willing to pretend they don't even know about this case? 

(2) Has the advantage that it requires only minimal legislative action.  I'm sure that there will be other representatives and other persons who will remind any who may not have heard of the decision.

[jimrtex]

Hmm... I made a map of Washington with 10 districts but I am not exactly sure how to save from the program to my computer (yes, I do feel like an idiot if any of you are wondering).

In the upper left corner under File Menu, there is a Save and Save As menu.  You might need to set a File Name as well.  The plans are placed in a directory that is well-hidden.  

It is confusing when you restart.  You first select the State, and then an Open File option will appear in the File Menu, and you can retrieve your plan.  If you haven't selected a State, there will be no "Open File" option.

You can also save your maps the same way using the Save Maps buttons in the middle of the menu.  A "map" is essentially just saving the current zoom and position settings.  Be sure to set a name for maps.

If you run the map to jpg converter program, then you have to navigate down through all the directories to find the map files.  You can specify an ordinary directory for the jpg files.

The Help file (click on the upper right) is pretty complete, though brief.

[jimrtex]

Let's say you brought a finger from MO-4 into KC.

The district is unprotected by VRA concerns.

,,,,

I also refer to the recent Supreme Court decision whose name I forget, covering legislative districts in North Carolina, that essentially said any district with fewer than 50% minority population is not inherently protected by VRA. MO-5 falls far short of that standard.

Bartlett v. Strickland

ALEC press release on Bartlett v. Strickland

The majority opinion explicitly says it does not apply to cases of intentional discrimination.  In North Carolina, the legislature had deliberately violated the state constitution under a mistaken belief that it was required to do so to avoid violating the VRA and the 15th Amendment.

In my scenario, the Missouri legislature not only brought a finger of CD-4 into Kansas City, they did it to fragment the black community.

Anyhow, the whole point was whether or not Section 2 applies to the entire country, and not how it might apply in individual instances.

Jim, can you cite any examples of congressional districts--or even legislative districts--with as small a minority population as MO-5 being protected by VRA against redistricting that produced a chance of Republican representation? (This is not a ridiculous or contrived situation at all, no matter how it sounds.) 

The VRA does not protect voting districts, but voters.

[jimrtex]

(2) Has the advantage that it requires only minimal legislative action.  I'm sure that there will be other representatives and other persons who will remind any who may not have heard of the decision.

You're a stubborn one.

I stand by my argument that congressmen aren't going to pick fights with all of the elected officials in their districts by imposing this burden, but we can agree to disagree.

Congressmen would rather pick a fight with local elected officials who are claiming to be concerned about bureaucracy than with civil rights groups.  The Congressmen can tell the elected officials that if they don't discriminate they have no reason for concern.

[jimrtex]

Florida Map 25 districts based on the 2000 Census.  Maximum deviation 185, average deviation 96, standard deviation 115. 

I was trying to pretty much follow county boundaries, at least down through about Orlando.  That explains the Volusia-Lake district, and the Orange-Seminole districts.  You could arrange those districts some to make them more compact.  There might be some combinations of counties that work better along the west coast below Tampa, but I didn't spend any time looking for them.  The big lime green district in the south looks OK but really is a lot areas around the edges combined together.



Three area maps.  Note that the lilac area around Jacksonville is part of the purple district to the west.  Cities are shown in a lighter color, and most of Duval County has been merged with Jacksonville.









Some area details.  The first two are along the SE coast.  Practically nobody lives in the interior of Dade, and Broward counties.  Almost all of the population of Monroe County is on the Florida Keys.  There is a relatively small population around Belle Glade on the SE short of Lake Okeechobee in NW Palm Beach County, but the districts should largely be thought of as a stack going up the coast.  The interior areas are attached to whichever district was handy.

The population in the puce-colored district is along the coast south of Miami, with little south of Homestead, plus the population on the Keys.  It should simply be thought of the district south of the purple district.  I probably could have done a better job of following city boundaries but the application has problems with polygons with enclaves.  So you could keep all of Miami in a district.






The next map is of the Tampa-St.Petersburg area.  The gray district to the north almost exactly matched the edge of the Pasco County line, so I simply started with the St Petersburg district, and then drew the purple district to avoid splitting the main part of Tampa, so it really is more of a leftovers district.



This is the Orlando area.  Lake and Volusia together were close to a CD in population, and Orange and Seminole, so you could probably do a better job in this area if you would split Seminole County.



And finally Jacksonville.  I mainly just selected the larger block groups around western, northern and eastern edges of Duval County figuring that these were more suburban, and also to make it look like Nassau County belongs with the district to the
west.

[jimrtex]

Okay, so I can save and load files, but I can't convert them to jpgs, because I can't find the files. The supposed directory that contains them doesn't exist.

Edit: I've discovered Vista's "snipping tool", which seems to be much less cumbersome than trying to use that jpg converter thing.

I am using XP, but the files were where the help file said they were.

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Silverlight\is\<junkdir1>\<junkdir2>\1\s\<junkdir3>\f\DavesRedistrictingFiles\<state>

The <junkdirs> are literally strings of letters run together.  You could probably search for drf.xml or map.xml files created in the last few days.

I scrunched my jpg files in the east-west direction by cos(latitude).  The application works in lat/long so as you go further north east west directions are stretched.  It should be very noticeable in Washington.

[jimrtex]

Don't worry about where IA congressmen live. IA doesn't use incumbent residences as a factor. Because IA is easy, you should try to get the districts to within about 100 people. Last time the deviations were +37, -24, +40, +40, and -94 from the ideal population, I assume that the mapmakers will try for the same goal next time.

The legislature actually rejected the first plan because its deviation was too large (I think around 150).  I always figured they just didn't like what the computer drew, but had to have a rationale for rejecting the map.

[jimrtex]

Georgia 13 districts based on 2000 census.

Average deviation 91, Standard deviation 111.
Atlanta 6 (average 57, sd 68)
Outstate 7 (average 116, sd 139)

Atlanta 6 = 5.9997/13 of population.  Outstate is 7 block groups away from matching county boundaries.

[jimrtex]

Well, fellas, I had a pretty decent map, but its either not saving mine to my computer, or... I don't even have an alternative.  That could have been a good two hours I just wasted, there.

If you clicked on the Save under the File menu it probably saved it.  It is to an application data area.  When you restart the application, you have to first select the State and then after it loads all the base data, you can use the File menu to open up your plan.  The Open option does not appear until you have loaded up the data for a State.

Alternatively, search for a file with "drf.xml" in its name and created in the past few days.

[jimrtex]

I have recent census tract estimates from the state government that would be much more accurate than their method of applying Census estimates. Their estimates method might work in some states, but my county alone has almost 2 million people and some parts have grown way faster than others, so it's not very helpful. I wish there were a way I could use the state tract estimates instead...

Send an e-mail to Dave Bradlee.  He appears to be receptive to assistance to make his program better.  Since block groups nest within census tracts, it should be relatively easy to adjust the data for your estimates, especially if you are willing to do the grunt work.

[jimrtex]

Here's a redo of Indiana.  I'm not really sure why their districts were so funky looking in the first place.

You need to draw a 10-district plan first.

Then choose a district in the middle of the state to dismantle, and it can't include the Marion County seat.  To the extent possible, add 11% of the dismantled district to each of the 9 remaining districts.  If you could do this, the old representative won't be able to find enough of his old district available to challenge anyone.

If that isn't possible, try to spread the additions from among several adjoining districts (eg for the Gary district, add 5% going east and 6% going south).  But be careful that you don't disrupt the other districts too much.

Alternatively, combine two districts in the middle of the state in a way that the incumbents can't really avoid a primary battle and the distribute the rest of the combined districts as above.

[jimrtex]

Well, fellas, I had a pretty decent map, but its either not saving mine to my computer, or... I don't even have an alternative.  That could have been a good two hours I just wasted, there.

If you clicked on the Save under the File menu it probably saved it.  It is to an application data area.  When you restart the application, you have to first select the State and then after it loads all the base data, you can use the File menu to open up your plan.  The Open option does not appear until you have loaded up the data for a State.

Alternatively, search for a file with "drf.xml" in its name and created in the past few days.

Okay, well I did all of that.  I still can' find the file on my computer... which is odd, because I am going to assume it must have saved it.

You might not have searched your computer in the right place.  You might have to search the whole C drive or look here.

*  On Windows XP files are saved in:
      C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Silverlight\is\<junkdir1>\<junkdir2>\1\s\<junkdir3>\f\DavesRedistrictingFiles\<state>
* On Windows Vista files are saved in:
      C:\Users\<username>\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\Silverlight\is\<junkdir1>\<junkdir2>\1\s\<junkdir3>\f\DavesRedistrictingFiles\<state>

[jimrtex]

I mean, if I even has a "Documents and Settings" folder, that might help.

* On Windows Vista files are saved in:

      C:\Users\<username>\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\Silverlight\is\<junkdir1>\<junkdir2>\1\s\<junkdir3>\f\DavesRedistrictingFiles\<state>

See if you can find the "Silverlight" directory.

When you were drawing the plan, did you do a Save As or a Save?  You might also have to actually type a file name in the box up by the File menu.

[jimrtex]

Dammit... was anyone else having this problem where it was cutting off the bottom, or other area of your map, after you converted it to JPG?

Did you save a "state map" eg click the check box?  Or did you try to show the whole plan and then create that as an "area map"?

[jimrtex]

Arizona with 8 districts.  Maybe if Arizona had an independent redistricting commission they could get something like this rather than the mess that they have.

The Tucson district (purple) includes the city proper and densely populated areas nearby.  Marana, Oro Valley, and Green Valley are in the Southern Arizona (red).



I tried to follow city boundaries as much as I could, though Phoenix gets chopped up.   I couldn't quite get all of Mesa in the green district.  The yellow district should be Tempe, Chandler, and southern Phoenix.  The grey district should be Glendale, Peoria, and points west, plus parts of western Phoenix south of Glendale.  The purple district is Scottsdale and northern Phoenix, with the aqua district the central part of Phoenix.

[jimrtex]

Indiana must practically draw itself.  Our maps are quite similar except for the colors.  I wanted to avoid using the gray color for the Indianapolis district since it is hard to see when there are a lot of city boundaries.

A 3-2-2 paln with 2 for Indianapolis is pretty natural.  You probably could not draw a reasonable district that linked Gary and South Bend or South Bend and Fort Wayne; though you might be able to do Fort Wayne and Elkhart.

And a cross-state district north or south of Indianapolis is going to be be pretty ugly and skinny.

It might be harder to draw an 8-district plan.  Perhaps 3 districts centered on Indianapolis but exteding out further, and the corner districts edging extending along the Ohio and Illinois borders.

I think the main difference in our plans is that I drew the Gary district to include Michigan City, splitting LaPorte Couty, rather than going south.  This put all of Kosciusko Countyin the South Bend district.

Did you use the 2000 population or the estimates?

Here's a redo of Indiana.  I'm not really sure why their districts were so funky looking in the first place.

[jimrtex]

I have not been able to create jpg files for my maps. I save the state map from the app, and I can find it on my drive. However, the map tp jpg converter on the site can't open the file. Has anyone else encountered this, and if so what fix is there?

That's another confusing thing about this app -- you use the save on the left-hand size to save the actual map, but the save on the right side to save pictures of the map that the converter uses.

After three tries withe left control for the state, I was able to get something that would open and convert to jpg. I made a zoomed area, saved the area, and I still don't get something I can open and convert, at best I get the state map back.

You have to click the state and area boxes under the Save Maps, and it might not hurt to specify a file name.  When you run the map to jpg converter it generates jpgs for all the maps, but only the state map is displayed by the conversion program.

[jimrtex]

I challenge people to do maps, for fun, with Canadian (100,000) or French (125,000)-sized constituencies.

Iowa with 29 districts, with average population of 100,908, maximum deviation 4.0%, average deviation of 1.9%.

6 counties have a population in excess of one district and one or more whole districts was formed within: Polk County (Des Moines) 3.712; Linn (Cedar Rapids) 1.900; Scott (Davenport-Bettendorf) 1.572; Black Hawk (Waterloo-Cedar Falls) 1.269; Johnson (Iowa City) 1.100; Woodbury (Sioux City) 1.029.  Woodbury was not split, since it is only slightly over the limit.

Jackson County was also split.  Dubuque County (Dubuque) was short by about 11.7%, and adding the entirety of a neighboring county would create an excess of at least 6.5%.  The area of Jackson County placed with Dubuque County is largely along the Mississippi River south of Dubuque.

Des Moines, unlike most large city has not been fused with its township so Polk County was divided by townships.  Western Des Moines is Des Moines township with an almost ideal population of 100.4% of the target district population.  Most of the rest of the city is included in Lee township (east) and Bloomfield township (south).  This eastern district also includes Pleasant Hill and Carlisle.  The western suburban district includes large parts of West Des Moines, Windsor Heights, Clive, Urbandale, Grimes, and Johnston.  The northern suburban district, which includes Boone County, contains Ankeny, Saylorville, Altoona, and Bondurant.

Cedar Rapids is the only city that was split.  With a population of 119.6% of the target, area in the far southern part of the city were trimmed off and placed with the rest of Linn County and northern Johnson County.  Johnson County only has a slight overage, and the boundary is north of Iowa City and its suburbs.

Davenport is almost the ideal size of a district (97.5%), leaving the rest of Scott County, including Bettendorf to be paired with Muscatine County.

Waterloo and Cedar Falls together have a population equivalent to 104.0% of the target population, leaving the relatively small excess population of Black Hawk County to be placed in a district with 3 other counties.

[jimrtex]

A different question with IA has to do with their reapportionment. Assuming that they lose one congressional seat, what happens to the nesting of Senate and House seats within each CD? Currently the 5 CDs are divided into 10 Senate districts and each Senate district into 2 House districts. 50 doesn't divide into 4 so either IA changes the nesting rules or the number of State Senators.

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Nesting of legislative districts within congressional districts is not an absolute standard.  Even when the number of senate districts is a multiple of the number of congressional districts, it may be possible to divide fewer counties with senate district boundaries if CD's are ignored.

Of the 50 senate districts, 17 are contained wholly within one county, but only 4 of the other 33 are comprised solely of whole counties.  Within most CDs, you can draw chains of senate districts that split counties (eg the boundary between SD 9 and SD 12 split a county; as does the 12-16 boundary; the 16-13 boundary; and the 13-42 boundary.  This is the NE CD, with 5 senate districts wholly contained in single counties (2 in Black Hawk (Waterloo-Cedar Falls), 2 in Scott (Davenport-Bettendorf) and 1 in Dubuque (Dubuque).

OTOH, since CDs have a population almost ideal for 10 senate districts, a perimeter of county boundaries, and a tight standard for legislative district populations, it may not be possible to do much better ignoring CDs.  The maximum average absolute deviation for legislative districts is 1%, and largest to smallest is 5%.

Practical answer for 2010 would be to have 12 senate districts wholly within each CD, and have each of the remaining two senate districts span a pair of CDs, such that one house district is within each CD.

The nesting standard is:

SD nest in CD
HD nest in CD
HD nest in SD

Not:

HD nest in SD nest in CD.

[jimrtex]

I have two maps of NC, one with 15 and one with 16, but I can't seem to find it, can someone help me?

Vista or XP?  Do a search for "Silverlight" in your file system.  You may have to set a search option to search for hidden files.

[jimrtex]

Ok, I found it, now how do you trun it into a picture?

When you are running the redistricting app, you need to save a "map".    You can also save additional area maps, which are simply zoomed in areas of your plan.  The map files will be stored in the same place as the plan is saved.

Then on the help page for the redistricting app, look for:

   Map2JPG.exe

This is a program that converts maps into jpg.  You don't need to install it, so can either download it and run it, or click and run it directly.  I had to install Net 3.5 to make it work.

When you run the program you specify the directory and file name where the jpgs are stored.

[jimrtex]

I have no idea if I did a Democratic or Republican gerrymander, I just tried to make pretty districts.

You should make the Portland district yellow so it looks like the beak of bird, and then the southern coastal district green for the wings.