Gerrymandering Canada

[Hatman 🍁]

Now with the poll by poll maps out, it should be relatively easy to make maps that would help certain parties win seats.

When I saw how well the NDP did in much of Ottawa-Vanier, I set out to gerrymander a 2nd seat for the NDP in Ottawa:



Both seats have between 105,000 and 110,000 which is ideal.

I was fooling around with Toronto last night, and I might be able to get 14 NDP seats there

Any gerrymander requests?

[Hatman 🍁]

I'm curious to see how many non-conservative seats can we get gerrymandering Alberta.

I left the current NDP riding (Edmonton-Strathcona) alone, and was able to create a new NDP riding in the city from parts of Edmonton Centre and Edmonton East. That's probably the best I could do.

[Hatman 🍁]

http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?authuser=0&ie=UTF8&hl=en&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=214668381355121949879.0004a89893b55720f76af

Might be too big populationwise, if so, cut the southeast out; same result. NDP seat.

It's easy to gerrymander an NDP riding into Saskatoon. Try gerrymandering 2 ridings!

[Hatman 🍁]

Here's my Saskatoon map:



Each riding has about 70,000 which is the provincial average

[Hatman 🍁]

2 NDP seats in Regina. Ralph Goodale would be upset, he'd probably lose in a more ruralized Wascana riding.

[Hatman 🍁]

I've one-upped Teddy again by creating two Liberal seats in Peel Region (and one NDP seat)

One thing that will be very interesting will be what happens in downtown Toronto. Right now because of all the new development and condo construction, Olivia Chow's Trinity-Spadina seat is seriously over-populated and so is Toronto Centre. Its almost certain that a new seat will have to carved out there.

Ideally, I'd like to see Rosedale lopped off and merged with Forest Hill and or Leaside and create a "vote sink" that is all really wealthy NDP dead zones.

You could also easily create another NDP seat on vancouver island.

Why make those seats super NDP safe, when you can make 14 NDP ridings in Toronto, by stretching out the waterfront into suburban hinterland? [the answer is obvious, I know, but what's the fun in that?]

[Hatman 🍁]

How about a Conservative seat on the Montreal Island?

I did one too!



From the looks of it, Teddy's probably doesn't have enough people. I also included a neighbourhood in St Laurent that voted Conservative. And while Trudeau may not be the worst name for the riding (actually, a fairly good one- what with the airport and part of his old riding- but I'm against naming ridings after people), I gave it a more geographical name.

[Hatman 🍁]

It's funny that whenever I "gerrymander" an NDP seat, it always looks normal, but gerrymandering the other parties requires some work and funny looking districts. That'll change when I do Toronto and a 75 NDP seat Quebec

[Hatman 🍁]

2 NDP seats in Regina. Ralph Goodale would be upset, he'd probably lose in a more ruralized Wascana riding.

Regina Wascana is a bit deceptive because most of the people who would normally vote NDP are voting for Goodale (for some strange reason). The moment he quits Wascana will be another Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca and the successor to Goodale will be lucky to save their deposit. Without Goodale, Wascana would actually be the most NDP-friendly seat in the province.

Well, this gerrymander is taking into account Ralph Goodale still being around. Although, it might encourage him to retire.

[Hatman 🍁]

New challenge: gerrymander Ottawa-Orleans to elect the Liberal.

I had to shore up Orleans with parts of what was Ottawa-Vanier, I hope you don't mind:

Would it be possible to gerrymander more Green seats?

It's funny, I told my friend at work about what I was doing today (this), and he asked the same thing. I sincerely doubt it; although if you split up Saanich-Gulf Islands in such a way you could create 2 green seats... but I doubt it.

[Hatman 🍁]

Though the problem with a lot of these "gerrymander" exercises is that they can take most-recent-results too much at face value:  Canada simply isn't like the States where the Blue/Red divide is so stiff and eternal.  Sure, there are places which may *seem* otherwise (the Sask urb/ru divides being a classic case in point); but things can shift and still can shift in weird ways, to the point where one can trip over oneself in fabricating apparently "Tory" or "Liberal" (or, I guess now, "NDP") ridings in the 905...

Oh, I know. I think the point of this exercise is another way to analyze the election results

[Hatman 🍁]

OK, here's 13 NDP seats in Toronto



Comments?

[Hatman 🍁]

The reason you are getting so many seats is you are not accounting for riding specifics.

what?

[Hatman 🍁]

Places like Rouge River voted NDP because of the local candidate. Unless you want to Somehow gerrymander that candidate, the NDP wont be winning both those ridings

Oh, lol. Good point. The NDP could run 2 Tamils and get similar results. As I mentioned before, this is another fun way to analyze the election results.

[Hatman 🍁]

OK, here's 13 NDP seats in Toronto



Comments?

This is why i am so glad we do not let politicians gerrymander like in the US! TO looks ugly, Dufferin makes my eyes bleed... but it does remind me of the old city of Toronto ridings from the 30's, all long and stretched out along arteries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rosedale_-_1933.PNG

What if we try and gerrymander SW Ontario to get more NDP seats?

Dufferin is great, it allows all those NDP voters at York to have an NDP MP

ETA: I could probably get another Windsor riding and another London riding and another Hamilton riding.

[Hatman 🍁]

Gerrymandering cannot work always, but you can gerrymander ridings to increase the odds of a certain party winning.  In the case of Guelph and Kingston & the Islands, the odds highly favour a Liberal win although a Tory and maybe even NDP under the right conditions are possible.  If the city was split into two ridings both extending into the rural areas, the odds would heavily favour a Conservative win but a Liberal win under the right conditions would still be possible.  Even in the US gerrymandering doesn't always work if the demographics of the Congressional district change enough to make it less favourable for a certain party.  The South is probably the easiest to gerrymander as voting patterns are based on heavily on race, otherwise African-Americans for the Democrats and Whites for the Republicans.  In Canada would don't have such racial polarization.

Kingston and Guelph need only be split in half to get rid of their Liberal advantage

[Hatman 🍁]

Another problem is that your victories are narrow. Saskatchewan has each of it's 8 "central" ridings have the cities being huge proportion; the NDP should have an advantage, but they dropped.

In other words, you could argue that Saskatchewan was gerrymandered to be pro-NDP, and that the NDP has been unable to perform.

Yes, I know. I would never advocate for these districts, obviously. Although chopping off Rosedale and adding it to Toronto-Danforth would probably benefit the NDP the most. Or creating a new riding that runs parallel to the Lake like DL suggested.

[Hatman 🍁]

London, ON gerrymander to get 2 NDP seats.



I would do Windsor, but I would need a map of Essex County, and Krago hasn't made one yet.

[Hatman 🍁]

Hamilton was easy to gerrymander 4 NDP ridings. I was hoping for a district that extended all the way to Brantford, but it was unnecessary. Perhaps gerrymandering a 5th NDP district would be possible.

[Hatman 🍁]

A couple of points. Firstly, and I was thinking of this relative to Hamilton, creating a fourth seat may push Niagara West - Glanbrook over and adversely (for the NDP) impact on Welland, so overall, actually create a net no change overall.

Don't forget that about 18 NEW seats are supposed to go to Ontario in the next election. A new seat could be created in Hamilton without having to negatively impact Welland etc...

Someone with time on their hands ought to look at which ridings are the most overpopulated and try to project where these new seats are likely to be.

I will be doing this. You will note I have the census release date listed on my blog in anticipation of a redistribution project.

Unfortunately, Welland is going to be affected with redistribution, and its marginal status can only mean the NDP will suffer. I'm not sure were the riding can be shored up outside the area. Then again, a smaller Welland riding might be ok (losing Wainfleet would be great).

A couple of points. Firstly, and I was thinking of this relative to Hamilton, creating a fourth seat may push Niagara West - Glanbrook over and adversely (for the NDP) impact on Welland, so overall, actually create a net no change overall.

Secondly, and this is merely an expansion on Teddy's thoughts earlier, a gerrymander may make it harder for one party to win a majority, but if they win by a reasonable margin, their majority will be much bigger because the other party will win more seats on a thinner margin and have fewer safe seats. Those central Saskatchewan seats might theoretically favour the NDP in an average election (8-0, or 7-1) but if the NDP performs worse than average, those results flip the other way around. The fewer safe seats can then make it difficult for the "natural" governing party to rebuild following a poor electoral showing, with fewer choices for the front bench giving them less credibility as the alternative government.

At the risk of sounding clichéd, it's that whole "Chinese symbol for crisis being the symbols for opportunity and threat" thing... A gerrymander may make it easier for a party to retain government, but if they lose, they're more likely to lose big. It may make it slightly harder for the other party to form government, but when they do, they will probably have a bigger majority and thus make it harder for the other party to claw its way back and a stronger mandate to implement policy - potentially giving them greater legitimacy in the eyes of the voters and making it easier for that party to retain government once it has won.

In short, a gerrymander is in some respects self-balancing, and only beneficial to one party over the short-term, in the longer term it makes no difference.

As you can see from my map, Niagara West-Glanbrook wouldn't be affected much. 4 riding can easily be done in Hamilton, although they wont look as gerrymandered as mine. One of them will probably be Conservative, as Hamilton East-Stoney Creek will likely shift east and southward becoming more Tory while the new Hamilton riding will be NDP.

http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?authuser=0&ie=UTF8&hl=en&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=214668381355121949879.0004a8b289f2c3d734afe

Insane. Many of those ridings would not be NDP.

[Hatman 🍁]

I call this map
http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?authuser=0&ie=UTF8&hl=en&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=214668381355121949879.0004a8c034b18f4c565bc
Teddy's ritalin hasn't kicked in yet cause he just woke up oh yea and there's some swear words in there
dot jpg

Im afraid that none of those disticts have the appropriate amount of people in them.

I'm issuing a new challenge to anyone who thinks they are bold enough to take it on.

Canada has decided to join the United States for some reason. You've been picked to draw some new Congressional boundaries. Since ridings are smaller than Congressional districts, there will be a number of ridings in each district. You are instructed to use ridings whole.

Your challenge is to gerrymander ridings so that specific parties are most easily able to win them.

Saskatchewan and Manitoba have two Districts each.
Alberta has 6
British Columbia has 7
Quebec has 13
Ontario has 21

This means each district should consist of...
7 ridings in SK or MB
4 or 5 in AB
4 or 5 in BC
5 or 6 in QC
5 in Ontario (with a single district being allowed to have 6)

Hmmm. I know you want whole ridings, but it that wasn't a rule, it would be cool to gerrymander 1 NDP and 1 Tory District in Saskatchewan

[Hatman 🍁]

We could never have NC style gerrymandering because of the way our population is distributed. Quebec is the only place with the proper distribution, but it's voting population is too homogeneous. Toronto is too "squished in", Saskatchewan is not populated enough, etc etc.

I just realized gerrymandering 1 NDP and 1 Cons district in Sask. would be near impossible. Best I could do would be to make a competitive district by connecting the north, central Saskatoon, central Regina and some of the smaller cities together into one district.

[Hatman 🍁]

More than Thornhill?

[Hatman 🍁]

Makes no sense to look at things in isolation. Liberal support has collapsed amongst pretty much all 'immigrant' communities over the past couple of elections, especially further out into the suburbs. Which is extremely significant as such communities have been one of their main electoral bulwarks since the 1950s and after Trudeau became their main source of strength. The process has been more extreme with Jewish voters though; of course the Tories have been wooing them in a serious way for longer than other minorities and, also, they're a more affluent group overall. Suspect that Israel is a factor for some (especially the more mainstream Orthodox) but generally issues like that are overrated.

The Jewish vote change in recent years has been striking, a lot more than any other immigrant group.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Jewish vote change in recent years has been striking, a lot more than any other immigrant group.

Sure, the collapse in Liberal support amongst Jewish voters has been especially dramatic (don't think I denied that). I suspect that they will also find it harder to claw back; that is if they're ever in a position to even try. But it's very much part of a wider pattern rather than something unusual. My point, really, is that we're basically just looking for differences at the margins (why has group x swung harder than group y) rather than looking at something unique.

Well, they've already swung provincially as well... before any other group. Who would've expected Thornhill to go Tory in 2007? I mean, I suppose it is the only riding in the province that John Tory's religious schools issue would be a benefit, but still.

It is fascinating about the Jewish vote. It wasn't too long ago that they were all voting Communist.