Forum Redistricting Commission

[jimrtex]

Since no commissioners have weighed in on the items before the commission, I'm not sure how to proceed. The process will drag out, and there will probably be a lack of interest if things don't keep moving. Commissioners morgieb, Miles, Del Tachi, and ElectionsGuy have all posted to the Atlas since Items 4 and 5 were posted, but not on those items. Only Fuzzybigfoot has been off since 11/26, and that's why there are two alternates: X and SLCValleyMan. Any feedback into how to get this on track is welcomed.

If the Virginia commission were operating under the terms of the Florida constitution, items 4 and 5 would be outlawed since they are politically-based.

The current litigation in Florida was whether or not the legislature was indirectly influenced to make political decisions.   The problem in Florida is that the legislature is a political body, and you would hope that they would be susceptible to political arguments.

In Britain, where the boundary commissions are independent, public representations by political parties are quite acceptable and ordinary, but they have to be cast in terms that the commission can recognize, such as communities of interest.

I would suggest that items 4 and 5 not be used directly by the commission, but that we (the forum community) use them as metrics for the process as a whole.

[muon2]

Since no commissioners have weighed in on the items before the commission, I'm not sure how to proceed. The process will drag out, and there will probably be a lack of interest if things don't keep moving. Commissioners morgieb, Miles, Del Tachi, and ElectionsGuy have all posted to the Atlas since Items 4 and 5 were posted, but not on those items. Only Fuzzybigfoot has been off since 11/26, and that's why there are two alternates: X and SLCValleyMan. Any feedback into how to get this on track is welcomed.

If the Virginia commission were operating under the terms of the Florida constitution, items 4 and 5 would be outlawed since they are politically-based.

The current litigation in Florida was whether or not the legislature was indirectly influenced to make political decisions.   The problem in Florida is that the legislature is a political body, and you would hope that they would be susceptible to political arguments.

In Britain, where the boundary commissions are independent, public representations by political parties are quite acceptable and ordinary, but they have to be cast in terms that the commission can recognize, such as communities of interest.

I would suggest that items 4 and 5 not be used directly by the commission, but that we (the forum community) use them as metrics for the process as a whole.

I included them as measures since political data is explicitly required by the AZ commission and were part of the proposal for an OH commission. Good government groups I've spoken with are divided as to the need to use or forbid the use of the political measures of a plan. Personally, I think that clever mappers will find a way to gain a political advantage even with extensive neutral rules (see MI). Political measures provide one means to determine if the rules have been gamed.

However, it is because of the political nature of this data that I placed SKEW and POLARIZATION as after-the-fact measures in Item 3. They can not be used to exclude a plan, but can be used to guide the commission's final selection. I also believe that commissioners will have inherent biases towards certain plans and the political data simply provides a check on those inherent biases.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I vote for items four and five

[jimrtex]

Since no commissioners have weighed in on the items before the commission, I'm not sure how to proceed. The process will drag out, and there will probably be a lack of interest if things don't keep moving. Commissioners morgieb, Miles, Del Tachi, and ElectionsGuy have all posted to the Atlas since Items 4 and 5 were posted, but not on those items. Only Fuzzybigfoot has been off since 11/26, and that's why there are two alternates: X and SLCValleyMan. Any feedback into how to get this on track is welcomed.

If the Virginia commission were operating under the terms of the Florida constitution, items 4 and 5 would be outlawed since they are politically-based.

The current litigation in Florida was whether or not the legislature was indirectly influenced to make political decisions.   The problem in Florida is that the legislature is a political body, and you would hope that they would be susceptible to political arguments.

In Britain, where the boundary commissions are independent, public representations by political parties are quite acceptable and ordinary, but they have to be cast in terms that the commission can recognize, such as communities of interest.

I would suggest that items 4 and 5 not be used directly by the commission, but that we (the forum community) use them as metrics for the process as a whole.

I included them as measures since political data is explicitly required by the AZ commission and were part of the proposal for an OH commission. Good government groups I've spoken with are divided as to the need to use or forbid the use of the political measures of a plan. Personally, I think that clever mappers will find a way to gain a political advantage even with extensive neutral rules (see MI). Political measures provide one means to determine if the rules have been gamed.

However, it is because of the political nature of this data that I placed SKEW and POLARIZATION as after-the-fact measures in Item 3. They can not be used to exclude a plan, but can be used to guide the commission's final selection. I also believe that commissioners will have inherent biases towards certain plans and the political data simply provides a check on those inherent biases.

In Arizona, the use of the rule may have led to skewing of the results.  With so much of the population in a few counties, it is unlikely that but for that measure the competitive seats would tend to be underpopulated.

And it may be contrary to good representation.   Putting Cuyahoga and Holmes counties into a single district does not lead to good representative, even if it somehow led to a competitive race.  The representative can not be representative of the district, nor effectively represent the district since its interests are so disparate.  The initial redistricting initiative in Ohio may have failed because of the maps  that were produced showing you can get a long way from Cleveland without splitting counties.

[muon2]

Since no commissioners have weighed in on the items before the commission, I'm not sure how to proceed. The process will drag out, and there will probably be a lack of interest if things don't keep moving. Commissioners morgieb, Miles, Del Tachi, and ElectionsGuy have all posted to the Atlas since Items 4 and 5 were posted, but not on those items. Only Fuzzybigfoot has been off since 11/26, and that's why there are two alternates: X and SLCValleyMan. Any feedback into how to get this on track is welcomed.

If the Virginia commission were operating under the terms of the Florida constitution, items 4 and 5 would be outlawed since they are politically-based.

The current litigation in Florida was whether or not the legislature was indirectly influenced to make political decisions.   The problem in Florida is that the legislature is a political body, and you would hope that they would be susceptible to political arguments.

In Britain, where the boundary commissions are independent, public representations by political parties are quite acceptable and ordinary, but they have to be cast in terms that the commission can recognize, such as communities of interest.

I would suggest that items 4 and 5 not be used directly by the commission, but that we (the forum community) use them as metrics for the process as a whole.

I included them as measures since political data is explicitly required by the AZ commission and were part of the proposal for an OH commission. Good government groups I've spoken with are divided as to the need to use or forbid the use of the political measures of a plan. Personally, I think that clever mappers will find a way to gain a political advantage even with extensive neutral rules (see MI). Political measures provide one means to determine if the rules have been gamed.

However, it is because of the political nature of this data that I placed SKEW and POLARIZATION as after-the-fact measures in Item 3. They can not be used to exclude a plan, but can be used to guide the commission's final selection. I also believe that commissioners will have inherent biases towards certain plans and the political data simply provides a check on those inherent biases.

In Arizona, the use of the rule may have led to skewing of the results.  With so much of the population in a few counties, it is unlikely that but for that measure the competitive seats would tend to be underpopulated.

And it may be contrary to good representation.   Putting Cuyahoga and Holmes counties into a single district does not lead to good representative, even if it somehow led to a competitive race.  The representative can not be representative of the district, nor effectively represent the district since its interests are so disparate.  The initial redistricting initiative in Ohio may have failed because of the maps  that were produced showing you can get a long way from Cleveland without splitting counties.

AZ suffered from the mandate of competitiveness, not its inclusion. Since the commission was compelled to maximize the number of competitive districts, they were sensitive to a data set that was prone to skew their resulting districts. The maps produced by the opponents of the 2005 OH initiative also used the maximization of competitive districts to get strange results. The competing initiatives in 2010 which did not reach the ballot used political data as part of a mix of factors and did not prioritize it in a way that was likely to warp the final plan.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Since no commissioners have weighed in on the items before the commission, I'm not sure how to proceed. The process will drag out, and there will probably be a lack of interest if things don't keep moving. Commissioners morgieb, Miles, Del Tachi, and ElectionsGuy have all posted to the Atlas since Items 4 and 5 were posted, but not on those items. Only Fuzzybigfoot has been off since 11/26, and that's why there are two alternates: X and SLCValleyMan. Any feedback into how to get this on track is welcomed.

If the Virginia commission were operating under the terms of the Florida constitution, items 4 and 5 would be outlawed since they are politically-based.

The current litigation in Florida was whether or not the legislature was indirectly influenced to make political decisions.   The problem in Florida is that the legislature is a political body, and you would hope that they would be susceptible to political arguments.

In Britain, where the boundary commissions are independent, public representations by political parties are quite acceptable and ordinary, but they have to be cast in terms that the commission can recognize, such as communities of interest.

I would suggest that items 4 and 5 not be used directly by the commission, but that we (the forum community) use them as metrics for the process as a whole.

I included them as measures since political data is explicitly required by the AZ commission and were part of the proposal for an OH commission. Good government groups I've spoken with are divided as to the need to use or forbid the use of the political measures of a plan. Personally, I think that clever mappers will find a way to gain a political advantage even with extensive neutral rules (see MI). Political measures provide one means to determine if the rules have been gamed.

However, it is because of the political nature of this data that I placed SKEW and POLARIZATION as after-the-fact measures in Item 3. They can not be used to exclude a plan, but can be used to guide the commission's final selection. I also believe that commissioners will have inherent biases towards certain plans and the political data simply provides a check on those inherent biases.

In Arizona, the use of the rule may have led to skewing of the results.  With so much of the population in a few counties, it is unlikely that but for that measure the competitive seats would tend to be underpopulated.

And it may be contrary to good representation.   Putting Cuyahoga and Holmes counties into a single district does not lead to good representative, even if it somehow led to a competitive race.  The representative can not be representative of the district, nor effectively represent the district since its interests are so disparate.  The initial redistricting initiative in Ohio may have failed because of the maps  that were produced showing you can get a long way from Cleveland without splitting counties.

The Ohio thing failed because of the wording of the description Husted forced the measure to use at a point so close to the printing of the ballots that there wasn't time for any sort of legal challenge, IIRC.  He forced it to use wording that left most voters confused about what it would actually do.  I think we can all agree that 99.99% of voters didn't vote for or against that measure because of concerns about what type of district you could draw for Cuyahoga County without splitting counties.  As for Arizona, while the map was basically a pretty fair map.  Four safe Republican seats, two safe Democratic seats, one competitive seat that has a small Democratic tilt, and two competitive seats with a slight Republican tilt seems like about what you'd expect from a fair Arizona map.  It just happened that a fair map benefited Democrats more in Arizona just as it would have benefited Republicans more had their been a truly independent redistricting commission in Illinois. 

[muon2]

As for Arizona, while the map was basically a pretty fair map.  Four safe Republican seats, two safe Democratic seats, one competitive seat that has a small Democratic tilt, and two competitive seats with a slight Republican tilt seems like about what you'd expect from a fair Arizona map.  It just happened that a fair map benefited Democrats more in Arizona just as it would have benefited Republicans more had their been a truly independent redistricting commission in Illinois. 

The potential skew in AZ is due to the use of the 2008 data in the PVI's. The Pubs appear to have overperformed there due to McCain as the nominee. Until the data rolls off after the 2016 cycle, it's hard to call swing districts there very accurately. IL has the same problem, and it will be interesting to see the next set of PVI's when non-Obama data replaces 2008.

[jimrtex]

AZ suffered from the mandate of competitiveness, not its inclusion. Since the commission was compelled to maximize the number of competitive districts, they were sensitive to a data set that was prone to skew their resulting districts. The maps produced by the opponents of the 2005 OH initiative also used the maximization of competitive districts to get strange results. The competing initiatives in 2010 which did not reach the ballot used political data as part of a mix of factors and did not prioritize it in a way that was likely to warp the final plan.

IIRC, the illustrative map in Ohio was not produced by the opponents.

[jimrtex]

The Ohio thing failed because of the wording of the description Husted forced the measure to use at a point so close to the printing of the ballots that there wasn't time for any sort of legal challenge, IIRC.  He forced it to use wording that left most voters confused about what it would actually do.  I think we can all agree that 99.99% of voters didn't vote for or against that measure because of concerns about what type of district you could draw for Cuyahoga County without splitting counties.  As for Arizona, while the map was basically a pretty fair map.  Four safe Republican seats, two safe Democratic seats, one competitive seat that has a small Democratic tilt, and two competitive seats with a slight Republican tilt seems like about what you'd expect from a fair Arizona map.  It just happened that a fair map benefited Democrats more in Arizona just as it would have benefited Republicans more had their been a truly independent redistricting commission in Illinois. 

Husted was not Secretary of State in 2005.

It failed because the proponents produced a map which had "competitive" districts running across the state.   These maps were published in editorials by newspapers opposing the measure.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The Ohio thing failed because of the wording of the description Husted forced the measure to use at a point so close to the printing of the ballots that there wasn't time for any sort of legal challenge, IIRC.  He forced it to use wording that left most voters confused about what it would actually do.  I think we can all agree that 99.99% of voters didn't vote for or against that measure because of concerns about what type of district you could draw for Cuyahoga County without splitting counties.  As for Arizona, while the map was basically a pretty fair map.  Four safe Republican seats, two safe Democratic seats, one competitive seat that has a small Democratic tilt, and two competitive seats with a slight Republican tilt seems like about what you'd expect from a fair Arizona map.  It just happened that a fair map benefited Democrats more in Arizona just as it would have benefited Republicans more had their been a truly independent redistricting commission in Illinois. 

Husted was not Secretary of State in 2005.

It failed because the proponents produced a map which had "competitive" districts running across the state.   These maps were published in editorials by newspapers opposing the measure.

Ah, we were referring to different redistricting reform measures.

[muon2]

In any case the key issue with competitive districts is to promote a map that is responsive, ie one that allows the voters enough seats to change the partisan make-up of delegations in a way that reflects the opinions of the electorate. Since there is no proportional representation, the danger is a plan that is too effective at separating the parties into uncompetitive districts. There should be some number of competitive seats to protect against that. That's the value of measuring the polarization of a plan.

[Miles]

If this helps, here are more results by CD for my plan:

And I made two sets of PVI's; one is the standard version for Presidential races and the other was based on the five statewide races I calculated.

[muon2]

If this helps, here are more results by CD for my plan:

And I made two sets of PVI's; one is the standard version for Presidential races and the other was based on the five statewide races I calculated.

Very nice, and useful to see that the state results track the presidential results fairly well. BTW, did you want to vote on Items 4 and 5?

[Miles]

^ Oh, yes. I'll support both!

[traininthedistance]

I have two substantially similar submissions.  The first one minimizes county cuts and polarization; the second one is more compact (and possibly reduces skew?).  In both cases, Tidewater and the west are the same; the difference is merely how to split Loudon/Prince William/Albemarle etc.

In both cases, District 4 (black portions of Richmond/Tidewater connected via Southside) is the VRA district, at 50.9% Black VAP. Districts 6 and 9 are the same as in Miles' plan; I don't really think it's possible to improve on them given the extent to which they are compact, no-split, low-deviation, and substantially strong CoIs.

All districts are under 1K deviation in both plans (max deviation just under that line); road connectivity is kept in all cases. Additionally, distinct regions such as Shenandoah Valley and the Northern Neck are kept substantially whole, and I was glad to keep the Tidewater metro within three districts. Splitting the white Richmond suburbs between 1 and 5 is unfortunate; I may yet look for a map that doesn't do that while still maintaining all the other advantages found here.

Plan 1 minimizes county cuts: the only splits are a) Fairfax, which must be split twice for population purposes*, and b) those associated with the VRA district- Henrico, Richmond, Portsmouth, and Norfolk.  Plan 2 additionally splits Loudon.

*I tried to split within Fairfax so as to minimize town lines; most of those towns are merely CDPs and do not line up with voting districts, so some CDP split is unavoidable.  For both maps, I also kept all of the associated independent cities together in one of the Fairfax districts, so 11 is literally all-Fairfax. Henrico, of course, has a similar issue.

Without further ado:

SUBMISSION 1:



Tidewater/Richmond:



NoVA:



And the stats.

1: 43.4% O / 55.7% M, 40.7% Dem. 75.4% White / 16.1% Black VAP.
2: 49.5% O / 49.7% M, 46.2% Dem. 65.8% White / 22.1% Black VAP.
3: 58.7% O / 40.5% M, 53.7% Dem. 57.8% White / 31.2% Black VAP.
4: 69.1% O / 30.2% M, 63.7% Dem. 42.2% White / 50.9% Black VAP.
5: 43.1% O / 56.1% M, 40.6% Dem. 70.7% White / 22.6% Black VAP.
6: 42.1% O / 56.8% M, 40.4% Dem.  Supermajority white.
7: 53.1% O / 46.1% M, 47.1% Dem. 60.2% White / 17.0% Black / 14.8% Hispanic VAP.
8: 65.9% O / 33.3% M, 62.0% Dem.  63.3% White / 12.3% Hispanic / 12.8% Asian VAP.
9: 40.0% O / 58.6% M, 43.3% Dem. Supermajority white.
10: 52.9% O / 46.7% M, 48.7% Dem. 72.6% White / 11.4% Black VAP.
11: 60.3% O / 38.9% M, 55.2% Dem. 53.4% White / 10.0% Black / 16.6% Hispanic / 17.6% Asian VAP.

[traininthedistance]

And Submission 2.  Despite the additional county cut, I would consider this to be a better map.



Tidewater/Richmond:



NoVA:



Stats:

1: 43.4% O / 55.7% M, 40.7% Dem. 75.4% White / 16.1% Black VAP.
2: 49.5% O / 49.7% M, 46.2% Dem. 65.8% White / 22.1% Black VAP.
3: 58.7% O / 40.5% M, 53.7% Dem. 57.8% White / 31.2% Black VAP.
4: 69.1% O / 30.2% M, 63.7% Dem. 42.2% White / 50.9% Black VAP.
5: 43.1% O / 56.1% M, 40.6% Dem. 70.7% White / 22.6% Black VAP.
6: 42.1% O / 56.8% M, 40.4% Dem.  Supermajority white.
7: 49.9% O / 49.1% M, 46.7% Dem. 77.3% White / 13.7% Black VAP.
8: 65.9% O / 33.3% M, 61.9% Dem.  63.1% White / 12.3% Hispanic / 13.0% Asian VAP.
9: 40.0% O / 58.6% M, 43.3% Dem. Supermajority white.
10: 56.6% O / 42.7% M, 49.5% Dem. 54.9% White / 14.6% Black / 17.0% Hispanic / 11.0% Asian VAP.
11: 60.4% O / 38.9% M, 55.3% Dem. 53.6% White / 10.1% Black / 16.6% Hispanic / 17.3% Asian VAP.

[Sol]

Going off of train's map. Hampton Roads and Nova doesn't matter--what I'm focusing on is the center/Richmond.

[morgieb]

I will vote for Item 6.

[jimrtex]

Let's add to the discussion the I in SPICE: Inequality.

Definition: Quota. The quota is the total population of a state divided by the number of districts rounded to the nearest whole number.
Definition: Deviation. The deviation is the difference between the population of a district and the quota. Negative numbers indicate a district that has a population that is smaller than the quota.
Definition: Range. The range is the difference in population between the largest and smallest district in a plan.
Definition: Average Deviation. The average deviation is the average of the absolute values of the deviations for all districts in a plan.

Background: SCOTUS has set two different standards for districts. Legislative and local districts must be substantially equal and that has been interpreted to be a range not exceeding 10% of the quota. Congressional districts must be as equal as practicable, and for some time that was assumed to mean that only exact equality would do. However, the recent WV case makes it clear that a range of up to 1% of the quota is acceptable when driven by other neutral redistricting factors. Greater than 1% might also be acceptable, but 10% would presumably not be because that is set by a different standard. It's an evolving area in the law.

Item 6. All plans must have a range not exceeding 1% of the quota. For VA the quota is 727,366 and the maximum range would be 7,273.

Background: Some time ago there were some threads that tried to optimize the population equality of districts with no county splits. The result of that exercise was the following graph.



Each square represents a state. New England states used towns instead of counties, and states with counties too large for a district assumed that a whole number of counties would nest inside the large county. The more counties available per district, the closer to equality one could achieve, and the relation is logarithmic in population. The green line represents the best fit to the data. Data for average deviation can be fit as well, but the result is not substantially different other than the scale factor that has the average deviation equal to about 1/4 the range.

The average state has about 72 counties and if one divides that number into 2, 3, 4, etc. districts then one can use the fit from the data in the graph to predict a likely range. That in turn can be built into a table.

Item 7. The INEQUALITY score for a plan is found by taking the range for a plan and comparing it to the table below.

Range	Inequality
0-1	0
2-10	1
11-100	2
101-400	3
401-900	4
901-1600	5
1601-2400	6
2401-3200	7
3201-4000	8
4001-4800	9
4801-5600	10
5601-6300	11
6301-7000	12
7001-7700	13

I'd like discussion/voting to conclude by Friday 12/5 at 11:59 pm EST.

There is no reason for such a tight limit on range since it leads to gratuitous chops and gerrymandering.

[muon2]

There is no reason for such a tight limit on range since it leads to gratuitous chops and gerrymandering.

The commission can amend an item. However, a 10% range is presumably too large, since it is the allowed state standard and the federal standard is stricter. Federal ranges of up to 1% have been upheld, and like with the VRA the commission has to determine if it wishes to push federal law by extending beyond what is clearly permissible.

Speaking of the commission, ElectionsGuy has PM'ed me to say that he declines to take a seat on the commission. That moves X into the role of commissioner. JerryArkansas now joins SLCValleyMan as an alternate.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I vote aye on item six.

[Miles]

I vote aye on item six.

[Fuzzybigfoot]

I vote aye on item six.

[publicunofficial]

I vote aye on item six.

[muon2]

I see there are no votes on Item 7, nor any questions or suggested changes. To remind the commission, under Item 3 the INEQUALITY score is used to break a tie when two plans have both the same CHOP and EROSITY scores. The higher INEQUALITY is eliminated. If one uses the range directly then a one person difference would eliminate a plan. By grouping into bands based on some statistical measure then there remains the possibility that two plans with identical CHOP and EROSITY could still both go before commission for their vote if their ranges are statistically close. The INEQUALITY table in Item 7 is one way to provide that statistical grouping. If the commission prefers they can use the range directly and not group ranges into a score.