2020 Redistricting in Pennsylvania

[If my soul was made of stone]

TBH this map isn't bad outside of that western district.

-splitting the Harrisburg metro four ways
-splitting Philadelphia four ways
-splitting Montgomery four ways
-pairing Harrisburg proper with counties in the f-cking Northern Tier
-pairing Lehigh and Northampton with anything but the Stroudsburgs and their environs, let alone Carbon
-ridiculous amounts of arbitrary county splits, some of which make the portions of counties in certain seats non-contiguous

This map is a cerebral hemorrhage and a half any way you slice it.

[If my soul was made of stone]

TBH this map isn't bad outside of that western district.

-1.splitting the Harrisburg metro four ways
-2.splitting Philadelphia four ways
-3.splitting Montgomery four ways
-4.pairing Harrisburg proper with counties in the f-cking Northern Tier
-5.pairing Lehigh and Northampton with anything but the Stroudsburgs and their environs, let alone Carbon
-ridiculous amounts of arbitrary county splits, some of which make the portions of counties in certain seats non-contiguous

This map is a cerebral hemorrhage and a half any way you slice it.

1. What is the Harrisburg metro? Anyway yeah its bad
2. 2 of these are quite microchops and Philly gets 2 proper districts nested
3. Smaller chops  and I don't like it but we are talking about 1 township for one of these(Northern Bucks) Rotations should be relatively possible for this map. One of the chops seems to be for putting Cheltenham with PA03 likely to keep the black population up while increasing the black population of PA02.
5. No putting those 2 with Carbon is perfect. That's literally what the Lehigh valley is.

I'd define the Harrisburg metro for COI purposes as being all but the rural northern extremes of Dauphin + Mechanicsburg and everything east of it in Cumberland.

As for the rest, I suppose we'll agree to disagree. I much prefer a somewhat substantial split kept within a single county to a bunch of "microchops" across several counties, especially if it respects certain internal divisions. Carbon is indeed in the geographical Lehigh Valley, but occupies a more liminal rural space between the Lehigh Valley and NEPA metros.

[If my soul was made of stone]

TBH this map isn't bad outside of that western district.

-ridiculous amounts of arbitrary county splits, some of which make the portions of counties in certain seats non-contiguous

This map is a cerebral hemorrhage and a half any way you slice it.

Also for the last part, there are way too many county splits in SEPA, but I think for the other 11 districts there only seem to be 10 splits which is basically the bare minimum for population equality?

The number of counties split is passable, but as I said they're done in ways where multiple non-contiguous pieces of counties are contained in the splits rather than single chunks–there are three separate pieces of Cumberland and two of Snyder in the 13th, two of Butler in the 17th, two of Monroe in the 7th. This is what makes it especially egregious in my view.

[If my soul was made of stone]

http://www.politicspa.com/dems-release-their-own-congressional-map/30151/

Found the source for the PA 2011 Democratic proposal


Jesus christ.

I think 10 counties were NOT SPLIT.

The district shapes are self-evidently hilarious, but the underlying assumptions regarding partisanship are equally risible in hindsight. Grouping Harrisburg and Reading in with the entirety of Schuylkill, combining even the parts of Chester that were safely Dem then with deep Amish country, using Delaware and parts of Philadelphia to "shore up" Montgomery, an incarnation of the 12th that makes Old Man Murtha's '00s seat look like an exemplar of clean lines and COI preservation–holy Diana, imagine what a clusterf-ck the rest of the decade would've been under this map!

[If my soul was made of stone]

http://www.politicspa.com/dems-release-their-own-congressional-map/30151/

Found the source for the PA 2011 Democratic proposal


Jesus christ.

I think 10 counties were NOT SPLIT.

The district shapes are self-evidently hilarious, but the underlying assumptions regarding partisanship are equally risible in hindsight. Grouping Harrisburg and Reading in with the entirety of Schuylkill, combining even the parts of Chester that were safely Dem then with deep Amish country, using Delaware and parts of Philadelphia to "shore up" Montgomery, an incarnation of the 12th that makes Old Man Murtha's '00s seat look like an exemplar of clean lines and COI preservation–holy Diana, imagine what a clusterf-ck the rest of the decade would've been under this map!

Schuykill gets to stay whole because Tim Holden always landslided over there FYI.

I know that it was kept whole in the '10s version of what became Cartwright's seat for this reason, but there it was packed with much more dense Dem turf. Combined here with all of the GOP turf in Dauphin and Berks, as well as parts of Carbon that were also about to collapse, it makes one wince in hindsight.

I have no idea what the 4th is trying to accomplish. Was it supposed to be a swing seat between combining the bits of Mercer, Lawrence, Beaver, and Washington that were still fairly Dem at the time with all of that other noise?

[If my soul was made of stone]

PA Proportional Attempt

I tried to emulate the court by making it 8.5-8.5 essentially and keeping all incumbents (that aren't running for higher office) in their current districts. Cartwright is pretty screwed, him and Wild can't both survive. Just not enough Dem territory left.

The 3rd should be Black-majority. 43% VAP isn't cutting it when the population is this concentrated.

Splitting Forest County, which has less than 6,000 people, gave me a good laugh.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Revised shot at a State Senate map, after spending far too long trying to squeeze out things in the Lehigh Valley with how poorly these district sizes work there (my NY Senate map is also in development hell 'cause the Capital Region is a nightmare for similar reasons):



Trump '16: 26/50
Shapiro '16: 23/50
Casey '18 and Shapiro '20: 31/50
Wolf '18: 34/50
Biden '20: 27/50

[If my soul was made of stone]

Are these godawful splits of Bucks designed to disadvantage Fitz or something?

Both configurations of the 10th are nonsensical. It should be all of Dauphin and Cumberland plus whatever chunk of York, including York itself, is needed.

For the 17th, they should honestly just take the L instead of seemingly going out of their way to carve up everything. It's possible to have a Pittsburgh + northern townships seat and a southern townships + Beaver [+ however much of Lawrence and Mercer is needed] seat that would be competitive, but I don't think any of them would pass muster on metrics other than competitiveness.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Full collection of maps submitted to the court in this thread

https://twitter.com/Elaijuh/status/1486159847833935881

https://twitter.com/Elaijuh/status/1486161443670089734

Being able to recognize the shape of Pittsburgh in the 17th (16th? I can't tell which number is meant for which) here does not inspire confidence.

[If my soul was made of stone]

On the whole these maps are pretty alright, but cutting Lancaster County more or less in half rather than drawing a compact Lancaster/environs seat and a southern Amish seat is both questionable COI and arguably a Republican gerrymander, since there's more than enough marginal turf around Lancaster (East Hempfield, Lititz, etc.) for a competitive seat.

A more compact and central York seat could also be drawn, though that wouldn't elect a Dem regardless.