Fair redistricting: Texas

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

South Carolina plan 2 (non-VRA)

My second non-partisan redistricting plan for South Carolina, only 4 counties are split. All districts are Majority White, making this map VRA non-compliant.

District 1 R+3.84 - 48.6 - 50.1
District 2 D+0.2 - 50.6 - 48.4
District 3 R+17.78 - 35.7 - 62.7
District 4 R+17.62 - 35.8 - 62.7
District 5 R+6.46 - 46.9 - 52.0
District 6 R+4.19 - 48.5 - 50.5
District 7 R+6.74 - 47.3 - 51.7

What's spooky is that my current semi-VRA compliant map has the exact same 1st district.  My 6th is only black plurality, not black majority, and if I try to tweak my map to make the 6th black majority, I'll need to shift those few Darlington county precincts back to the 1st from my current 6th.

I may or may not submit that map, but it's spooky, tho not too spooky.  Anyone taking advantage of the fact the Trident has almost exactly 1 CD worth of population will have only a limited number of options for which precincts to shed.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The RCOGs are invisible to the average citizen and are but one of multiple ways of grouping counties that exist in South Carolina.  The judicial circuits and the technical college system have far more impact. There probably other groupings that split the State without even counting special purpose multi-county areas that aren't established on a statewide basis.  One of the major weaknesses of South Carolina local government is the very real lack of coordination and high degree of geographic overlap.  (Which is also why school district and municipal boundaries will sometimes cross county lines.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Here are my two maps.
Map 1

District	Deviation	PVI
1	29	R+3.87
2	-130	R+10.25
3	54	R+18.35
4	34	R+18.06
5	272	R+10.31
6	-180	D+13.61
7	-77	R+8.43

CD 6 is black plurality (49.6% B/42.9% W)

While Edisto Beach is part of Colleton County, the road to it is via Charleston County, so I included it in CD1 rather than CD 2 despite it adding another county chop to do so.
Other split counties include:
Chesterfield (CD's 5&7)
Dorchester (CD's 1&2)
Lexington (CD's 2&3)
Orangeburg (CD's 2&6)
Pickens (CD's 3&4)
Spartanburg (CD's 4&5)
Map 2

This is an attempt at a non-VRA Republican gerrymander that might be considered fair by other measures.

The justification for the four stringy districts is that CD 2 is the Savannah River corridor, CD 4 is the I-26 corridor, CD-5 is the I-77 corridor, and CD 7 is the coastal corridor.

District	Deviation	PVI
1	-267	R+3.62
2	-247	R+13.79
3	-215	R+18.57
4	608	R+10.63
5	471	R+0.41
6	-397	R+2.06
7	49	R+6.83

CD 6 has the highest minority percentage (54.7% W/39.8% B)

Split counties include:
Georgetown (CD's 1&7)
Horry (CD's 6&7)
Kershaw (CD's 5&6)
Lexington (CD's 2&4)
Laurens (CD's 3&4)
Richland (CD's 4&5)

I could stay within the 0.5% deviation limit and get rid of the chops of Georgetown and Kershaw.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The rest of the districts were fitted in. Greenville, Pickens and Oconee are equivalent to 0.975 districts, but this would require putting Spartanburg and Anderson in a very ugly district.

Not really.  But you did put yourself in a box by having a Lexington-Richland-Calhoun district which makes sense only if minimizing county chops are your primary criterion without considering whether counties go together.  Calhoun is much, much, much more connected to Orangeburg than Richland or Lexington.  Except for US 601 at the extreme eastern edge of the border, there is no way to get between Richland and Calhoun. Besides the RCOG, Calhoun and Orangeburg share a technical college, a hospital, and a judicial district.  It's primary reason for being made a county was that was back in the days when each county got a State Senator of its own.  Indeed, the highly arbitrary nature of many county borders in this State make it ludicrous to make minimizing county chops the primary criterion for district boundaries. Not that they shouldn't be considered, but don't dominate like they do in most other States.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The RCOGs are invisible to the average citizen and are but one of multiple ways of grouping counties that exist in South Carolina.  The judicial circuits and the technical college system have far more impact. There probably other groupings that split the State without even counting special purpose multi-county areas that aren't established on a statewide basis.  One of the major weaknesses of South Carolina local government is the very real lack of coordination and high degree of geographic overlap.  (Which is also why school district and municipal boundaries will sometimes cross county lines.)

The RCOG's match the Technical College districts with the exception of Laurens and Union counties, and that may represent a more modern sensibility as Union is drawn toward Charlotte, and Laurens is drawn towards Columbia (down the interstate). The Technical College districts are often smaller than the planning regions. Williamsburg has its own technical district - presumably because it doesn't fit with Florence, Myrtle Beach, or Charleston. It couldn't have its own RCOG so somebody chose an RCOG for it.

I don't see how in the name of Vic Ralls that you think that average citizens are familiar with circuit court districts.

More so than than the COG's, as at the very least they vote for the solicitor thereof, so they at least have a decent chance of knowing they exist and which one they are in.  You do need to double check on your county names, as that's Newberry, not Laurens that got included in the CMCOG. Both the technical colleges and the COG's got set up in the 60's.  The technical colleges were generally set up with more local input than the top-down COG's and not all at the same time.  For instance, the reason Williamsburg has its own technical college is that facility also doubles as a vocational education center for high school students which is what that county wanted.

Also, for Union County, it makes far more sense to be included with Spartanburg as it is for technical schools since it's in the same MSA.  Union isn't even in the Charlotte CSA.  The only reason I can think of for why the Appalachian Council of Governments was chosen to be those six counties is in its name as those are the seven counties included in the Federal Appalachian Regional Commission which was also set up in 1965. I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason the COG's got set up at all was because of Federal prompting.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Here's my real entry for SC. The main goal was to keep the CDs as close to whole county as possible while preserving UCC covers. CDs 5,6,7 are whole county. Only three counties are chopped between the other CDs and if the chops were removed to make them whole county, CDs 1,2,3,4 are each within 5% of the quota.

A nice try, but that CD 6 of yours looks good only on a map that ignores roads.  Calhoun is not at all well-connected to Richland County thanks to the Congaree National Swamp. In my opinion, county government (and county borders) are just not important enough in this State to subordinate all other considerations to the holy grail of no county chops.

Oh, and jimrtex, there's no need to invent a new name for the Dorchester, Berkeley, and Charleston combo.  Trident works quite well and is used for far more than just the local technical college.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Oh, and jimrtex, there's no need to invent a new name for the Dorchester, Berkeley, and Charleston combo.  Trident works quite well and is used for far more than just the local technical college.

That's not a new name.

Who uses it? Granted, I don't live in the Trident myself, but I find it hard to believe that anyone but a bureaucrat would willingly use such an ungainly appellation as Ashley-Cooper&Atlantic.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Oh, and jimrtex, there's no need to invent a new name for the Dorchester, Berkeley, and Charleston combo.  Trident works quite well and is used for far more than just the local technical college.

That's not a new name.

Who uses it? Granted, I don't live in the Trident myself, but I find it hard to believe that anyone but a bureaucrat would willingly use such an ungainly appellation as Ashley-Cooper&Atlantic.

Where the Ashley and Cooper meet to form the Atlantic Ocean?

I got the reference.  My question was who uses it to define the region?  Trident is used by multiple agencies and businesses, but I can't find anyone other than you who uses Ashley-Cooper&Atlantic.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

This was my submission. I almost hesitated to submit it, because Jimrtex and some others have made superior ones.

Why the ugly tendril into Spartanburg?

I suspect he was trying to make his 2nd district as Democratic as possible with that tendril.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Oh, and jimrtex, there's no need to invent a new name for the Dorchester, Berkeley, and Charleston combo.  Trident works quite well and is used for far more than just the local technical college.

That's not a new name.

Who uses it? Granted, I don't live in the Trident myself, but I find it hard to believe that anyone but a bureaucrat would willingly use such an ungainly appellation as Ashley-Cooper&Atlantic.

Where the Ashley and Cooper meet to form the Atlantic Ocean?

I got the reference.  My question was who uses it to define the region?  Trident is used by multiple agencies and businesses, but I can't find anyone other than you who uses Ashley-Cooper&Atlantic.

Charleston.Com

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Or you could name the districts after famous people:

Ashley-Cooper
Francis Marion
Denmark Vesey
Wade Hampton
John C Calhoun
Charles Pinckney
Andrew Jackson

Or you could just use existing geographic names rather than inventing them from people's names and/or fanciful phrases. I realize it's a matter of taste, but using an eight syllable concoction instead of an existing two syllable widely used name leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Clearly, Georgetown is appropriately placed in my map.

And when did anyone say anything about Georgetown?

Also you seem to have missed my point when I mentioned the judicial circuits.  It wasn't that they are well known, just that they are less obscure the the RCOG's.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'll try to get the SPICE scores for the finalists here:

Plan	-S-	-P-	-I-	-C-	-E-
cvparty A
cvparty B
Aussie A
Single A
Single B
MB	2	11	10	12	39
True A	3	13	3	16	39
muon2 A	2	11	11	5	34
jimrtex A
jimrtex B

nb. The SPICE rules reward plans that when they chop as little as possible into a county. This proves to be very valuable in urban areas that have dense populations: the chop may look small in area, but has a large impact in population. A macrochop is a chop that includes more than 5% of a district's quota. When a county is macrochopped in SC I will treat the school districts in that county as the subunits, since there are no townships as there are in the northeastern US. When a macrochop occurs, the school districts in that county act is if they were the counties in terms of chops and erosity.

Question: do these SPICE rules penalize my chop of Edisto Beach from Colleton County which I did because it only has a road connection to Charleston County?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Considering how convoluted and arbitrary our county borders are, giving preeminence to avoiding county chops might work in a mathematical sense, but not when it comes to putting reasonable districts together. Of the ten SC finalists, muon2 A was the worst in my opinion, not one of the two best. That second district was particularly heinous even tho it resulted from having the whole county districts 5, 6, and 7.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Considering how convoluted and arbitrary our county borders are, giving preeminence to avoiding county chops might work in a mathematical sense, but not when it comes to putting reasonable districts together. Of the ten SC finalists, muon2 A was the worst in my opinion, not one of the two best. That second district was particularly heinous even tho it resulted from having the whole county districts 5, 6, and 7.

What metrics would you use in lieu of county chops?

In general avoiding county chops are a good idea, but South Carolina is a State that helps show that generalities don't always work.  A number of our smaller counties were carved out specifically as gerrymanders back in the days when our General Assembly was apportioned by county. McCormick is the most egregious case of that, but far from the only one.  We've also got several non-contiguous counties as far as road networks are concerned. (Colleton, Georgetown, and Lexington all have bits you can only get to by car if you drive through another county. I'm not even going to count that small smidgen of Charleston County that's like that because I believe no one actually lives in the cut-off section.

I would say that metrics can help weed out bad districts, but they aren't that useful when it comes to deciding which district is the best.  For instance, I'm certainly not upset by my B-plan not even making the finals.  It was purposefully intended to be a reasonable-looking gerrymander rather than a "fair" plan.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Considering how convoluted and arbitrary our county borders are, giving preeminence to avoiding county chops might work in a mathematical sense, but not when it comes to putting reasonable districts together. Of the ten SC finalists, muon2 A was the worst in my opinion, not one of the two best. That second district was particularly heinous even tho it resulted from having the whole county districts 5, 6, and 7.

What metrics would you use in lieu of county chops?

In general avoiding county chops are a good idea, but South Carolina is a State that helps show that generalities don't always work.  A number of our smaller counties were carved out specifically as gerrymanders back in the days when our General Assembly was apportioned by county. McCormick is the most egregious case of that, but far from the only one.  We've also got several non-contiguous counties as far as road networks are concerned. (Colleton, Georgetown, and Lexington all have bits you can only get to by car if you drive through another county. I'm not even going to count that small smidgen of Charleston County that's like that because I believe no one actually lives in the cut-off section.

I would say that metrics can help weed out bad districts, but they aren't that useful when it comes to deciding which district is the best.  For instance, I'm certainly not upset by my B-plan not even making the finals.  It was purposefully intended to be a reasonable-looking gerrymander rather than a "fair" plan.

This is one of the reasons I spent a lot of time scoring the SC maps - it does provide some interesting tests of the metrics. One observation I would make is that the problem isn't about the chops, but the size of the chops. The recommended factors for the exercise include "County and especially town splits are kept small and reasonable". This matches the muon rule distinguishing ordinary chops from deep macrochops into a county (I use 5% as a threshold). Yet none of the plans except jimrtex's and mine strove to make chops small and reasonable, and the scores reflect that.

A scoring element that used to exist was a microchop, a chop less than 0.5% of the quota, and when it existed it added an extra reward for keeping shops so small. It seems like this would be useful in cases like Edisto. The danger was that microchops could potentially be gamed, so it would take some investigation to see if there were situations where they were warranted.

Yet following those rules to mathematical precision is precisely what led your map and jimrtex's maps to be so ugly and led to them breaking apart communities of common interest because of the math.  It also does sort of skew the selection process in favor of those who are familiar with your arcane calculations. I readily admit to not being familiar with them, nor do I care to learn. I did this because I was interested in redistricting South Carolina, which is why I probably won't be doing any other States, nor had I planned to do so.

Also, when it comes to South Carolina municipal boundaries, the less attention paid to them, the better, as they typically make those of the State of West Virginia seem compact by comparison.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Also, when it comes to South Carolina municipal boundaries, the less attention paid to them, the better, as they typically make those of the State of West Virginia seem compact by comparison.

I thought that school district boundaries made more sense than municipalities in SC, so I used them.

Agreed. Tho in some cases, you'd get better results from older boundaries such as in Orangeburg County which consolidated from eight to three districts about two decades ago.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I sincerely hope you mean that for redistricting purposes the States could define "municipalities" and "counties" rather than actual changes in boundaries.  Those won't happen. (Or rather if they do, it won't be for anything as esoteric as redistricting, but rather for purposes of gaming tax rates and revenue as is already the case.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

So Muon2 was talking about school districts as boundaries that could be used as guidelines for how to split a large County in some cases. I disagree heavily.

https://www.bcps.org/schools/boundaries-hs.pdf

Look at the ugly border between Kenwood HS and Chesapeake HS in the Eastern section of the County.

do you know what guideline means

More to the point, do you know what school district means?  That map is a map of attendance areas for the high schools that are part of the Baltimore County Public Schools school district.  In this case, the county boundaries and the school district boundaries are the same.