2015 county predictions

[jimrtex]

Spokane County added about 6500 people, meaning it has roughly grown 30-50% more each year this decade than the year prior. It's added nearly 20,000 people.

Outside of the booming Seattle area, the big surprise is how much Clark (Vancouver) continues to grow. Portland residents being priced out of the city, perhaps?

And a relative low population base to begin with. Clark, WA and Washington, OR have been growing at about the same rate for the past few decades. As suburban counties grow, they develop there own infrastructure, builders, grocery stores, doctors, lawyers, small companies. There could also be tax considerations and familiarity with the state. Someone from Yakima can stay in Washington, and cross the river if they need an airport or want to see an NBA game.,

[jimrtex]

The closest (in population) possible plan for Maine's two congressional districts consisting of (contiguous) whole Maine counties will go from this as of and according to the 2014 estimates



to this

I was wrong.  The second map, which stayed in "second place", did overtake the first, which fell to fourth, but the closest possible plan for Maine's two congressional districts with contiguous as of and according to the 2015 estimates is



The estimates released today have the green district having 126 more people than the blue one (so each district is 63 people off).  The difference in the next closest plan (with at least technically contiguous counties) is 1,308 (each district 1,504 654 people off).

How many plans are there within +- 0.5% (3000-ish)?

Now imagine that you had a Citizen's Redistricting Jury, say one per 1000 persons, with a guarantee of one juror for every town, and from cities, geographically representative.

The jurors would gather in their respective county seats (or perhaps multiple locations in Aroostook). After the maps are presented, they would rank them, with the votes weighted by the population they represent. Determine the Condorcet winner, and it becomes the winning plan.

[jimrtex]

How many plans are there within +- 0.5% (3000-ish)?

I couldn't tell whether you meant difference (as a percentage of the ideal) or deviation from the ideal (probably the latter), so I'll list both.

2015 estimates
Difference ≤ 0.5% (deviation from ideal ≤ 0.25%) of ideal district population - two plans:
1)

blue district 664,601 (-63 people or -0.01%)
green district 664,727 (+63 people or +0.01%)
difference 126 people (0.02%)

2)

blue district 664,010 (-654 people or -0.10%)
green district 665,318 (+654 people or +0.10%)
difference 1,308 people (0.20%)

Deviation from ideal ≤ 0.5% (difference ≤ 1.0%) of ideal district population - two more plans:
3)

blue district 666,941 (+2,277 people or +0.34%)
green district 662,387 (-2,277 people or -0.34%)
difference 4,554 people (0.69%)

4)

blue district 667,497 (+2,833 people or +0.43%)
green district 661,831 (-2,833 people or -0.43%)
difference 5,666 people (0.85%)

2010 census
Difference ≤ 0.5% (deviation from ideal ≤ 0.25%) of ideal district population:
No plans involving two strings of (at all) contiguous counties.

Deviation from ideal ≤ 0.5% (difference ≤ 1.0%) of ideal district population - just one plan:


blue district 662,077 (-2,103.5 people or -0.32%)
green district 666,284 (+2,103.5 people or +0.32%)
difference 4,207 people (0.63%)

Now imagine that you had a Citizen's Redistricting Jury, say one per 1000 persons, with a guarantee of one juror for every town, and from cities, geographically representative.

The jurors would gather in their respective county seats (or perhaps multiple locations in Aroostook). After the maps are presented, they would rank them, with the votes weighted by the population they represent. Determine the Condorcet winner, and it becomes the winning plan.

Interesting idea (as your ideas always are), although as the 2010 numbers show, there wouldn't always be more than one option (or potentially even one option) where the districts are close enough in population (unless you were to remove the contiguity requirement altogether).

You might have to open up the rules and permit county splitting. Let's say that you had a limit of +/- 5% without splitting counties. If any of these 5% plans could be improved by switching one county, then it would be eliminated.

Then for each of the plans in the 0.5% to 5% range, alternatives that would split one county, without splitting towns could be proposed. This might involve a two-stage process: (1) jurors in each county on the less populous side of the district-boundary would choose a most preferred (least disliked) county split for their county, and then the state jury would choose a preferred refinement of the base county plan.

There could also be a connectivity constraint, where Aroostook could only connect to Washington and Penobscot, and perhaps Piscataquis to Penobscot. These would have eliminated plans 1 and 3 from 2015, and the 2010 plan.

Are you a native Mainer? Is Piscataquis pronounced as in the song, or is changed to fit the meter?

Maine County Song(mp3)

[jimrtex]

Now imagine that you had a Citizen's Redistricting Jury, say one per 1000 persons, with a guarantee of one juror for every town, and from cities, geographically representative.

The jurors would gather in their respective county seats (or perhaps multiple locations in Aroostook). After the maps are presented, they would rank them, with the votes weighted by the population they represent. Determine the Condorcet winner, and it becomes the winning plan.

Interesting idea (as your ideas always are), although as the 2010 numbers show, there wouldn't always be more than one option (or potentially even one option) where the districts are close enough in population (unless you were to remove the contiguity requirement altogether).

You might have to open up the rules and permit county splitting. Let's say that you had a limit of +/- 5% without splitting counties. If any of these 5% plans could be improved by switching one county, then it would be eliminated.

Then for each of the plans in the 0.5% to 5% range, alternatives that would split one county, without splitting towns could be proposed. This might involve a two-stage process: (1) jurors in each county on the less populous side of the district-boundary would choose a most preferred (least disliked) county split for their county, and then the state jury would choose a preferred refinement of the base county plan.

There could also be a connectivity constraint, where Aroostook could only connect to Washington and Penobscot, and perhaps Piscataquis to Penobscot. These would have eliminated plans 1 and 3 from 2015, and the 2010 plan.

Piscataquis County is connected to both Penobscot and Somerset Counties by multiple state routes.  The only counties that border each other that have aren't undisputedly connected are (1) Aroostook-Somerset (flagrant), (2) Aroostook-Piscataquis (would also be considered flagrant by most, although there is or was a decent logging path connecting the two counties and there was a Senate district consisting of Piscataquis County and western Aroostook County (with none of Penobscot) used in the 1968 and 1970 elections in the first post-OMOV State Senate plan, drawn by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, no less), and (3) Hancock-Knox (the most obvious albeit probably the least flagrant, and Knox County contains one town, Isle au Haut (that just held it's 2015 town meeting a year late), that is connected by ferry only to Stonington in Hancock County, and Isle au Haut was in a State Senate district otherwise entirely in Hancock County (or with one neighboring town from Penobscot) from the 1972 through 1992 (primary and general) elections and again from the 2004 through 2012 elections, although it's been in Maine's first congressional district since Maine went down to 2 CDs in 1962, and as far as I know has been in the same CD as the rest of Knox County since it was shifted from Hancock County sometime around 1910).

There are some instances where part of a county is pretty much cut off from the rest of that county (Route 16 in northern Oxford County, Wellington in Piscataquis County (the usually Atlas red town in the southeastern corner, settled by "Back to the landers" in the 1970s I think), and Sagadahoc County which basically is cut in two by Merrymeeting Bay (it's current Senate district includes Dresden in Lincoln County which connects the two halves, but I'm sure candidates aren't above travelling through Brunswick outside the district to get from Bath to Topsham or vice versa)), but every main portion of each county is connected to the main portion of every county it borders by state rounts with the three above exceptions (and that obviously the Bath half of Sagadahoc County doesn't even border, let alone have a direct connection to Androscoggin or Kennebec counties, but both the Bath and Topsham halves of the county are connected to both Cumberland and Lincoln counties).  Perhaps there should be a ban on using the Androscoggin-Sagadahoc-Lincoln route without Kennebec or Cumberland counties (York + Cumberland + Oxford + Franklin + Kennebec is +5.06% based on the 2015 estimates, up from +3.82% in 2010, but could perhaps dip back under the +5% figure).

My recollection from when doing the temporal apportionment of Maine was that Piscataquis fit well with the western part of Penobscot (Piscataquis was the only county that wasn't populous enough for its own district), and the Bangor area had multiple districts (my recollections was faulty - I had to add a few towns to Franklin, Lincoln, and Washington to get them up to 3.0 representatives).

I suspect if  you took the towns with 90% or 95% of the population of the northern counties you would have a better starting point for redistricting (maybe have the people from the north, move to the county seat until redistricting is done, and then let them move back home).

Why is Aroostook populated? Was it not forested as well?

Are you a native Mainer?

Is Piscataquis pronounced as in the song, or is changed to fit the meter?

Maine County Song(mp3)

Yes [to being a Maine native]

That's how it's pronounced.  When I was in high school they didn't have the "The" and "are" at the beginning of the song, so the first line (or two lines, depending on how you look at it) was "Sixteen counties in are state, Cumberland and Franklin," which was noticeably drawn out to fit "Yankee Doodle", and I couldn't resist the temptation to improve the song's fidelity to the original tune by going

"Sixteen counties in our state, Cum-
berland and Franklin, Pis- [deliberate "ss" snake sound]
cataguis and Somerset,
Aroostook, Androscoggin,"

and then, well, I should have just proceeded as normal but I would overdo things even when the humor was exhausted so I would also move syllables in the second half of the song,

"Sagadahoc and Kene-
bec, Lincoln, Knox and Han-
cock, Waldo, Washington and
York, Oxford and Penobscot"

More weird, less of an improvement in the fidelity of the song to the original tune, and less funny, although there is a "cock" in there.

I had decided there was no way I was going to be able to spell Piscataquis, so I googled for "Piscato County Maine" and was directed to the SOS page with the 16 county songs. I wonder if Google was scary smart and knew I was saying that I didn't no how to spell the county names.

I had to figure out if you were a native, because the song is probably only sung in schools.

I don't think there is an equivalent in Texas:

'There's 254 counties in Texas, 254 counties in all
Anderson down and pass it around, 253 counties in all.
'There's 253 counties in Texas, 253 counties in all
Andrews down and pass it around,
.
.
.
[OK class, we'll stop here and finish up tomorrow]
.
.
'There's one county in Texas, one county in all
Zavala down and pass it around'

99 beers on the wall (Youtube)

[jimrtex]

Now imagine that you had a Citizen's Redistricting Jury, say one per 1000 persons, with a guarantee of one juror for every town, and from cities, geographically representative.

The jurors would gather in their respective county seats (or perhaps multiple locations in Aroostook). After the maps are presented, they would rank them, with the votes weighted by the population they represent. Determine the Condorcet winner, and it becomes the winning plan.

Interesting idea (as your ideas always are), although as the 2010 numbers show, there wouldn't always be more than one option (or potentially even one option) where the districts are close enough in population (unless you were to remove the contiguity requirement altogether).

You might have to open up the rules and permit county splitting. Let's say that you had a limit of +/- 5% without splitting counties. If any of these 5% plans could be improved by switching one county, then it would be eliminated.

Then for each of the plans in the 0.5% to 5% range, alternatives that would split one county, without splitting towns could be proposed. This might involve a two-stage process: (1) jurors in each county on the less populous side of the district-boundary would choose a most preferred (least disliked) county split for their county, and then the state jury would choose a preferred refinement of the base county plan.

There could also be a connectivity constraint, where Aroostook could only connect to Washington and Penobscot, and perhaps Piscataquis to Penobscot. These would have eliminated plans 1 and 3 from 2015, and the 2010 plan.

Piscataquis County is connected to both Penobscot and Somerset Counties by multiple state routes.  The only counties that border each other that have aren't undisputedly connected are (1) Aroostook-Somerset (flagrant), (2) Aroostook-Piscataquis (would also be considered flagrant by most, although there is or was a decent logging path connecting the two counties and there was a Senate district consisting of Piscataquis County and western Aroostook County (with none of Penobscot) used in the 1968 and 1970 elections in the first post-OMOV State Senate plan, drawn by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, no less), and (3) Hancock-Knox (the most obvious albeit probably the least flagrant, and Knox County contains one town, Isle au Haut (that just held it's 2015 town meeting a year late), that is connected by ferry only to Stonington in Hancock County, and Isle au Haut was in a State Senate district otherwise entirely in Hancock County (or with one neighboring town from Penobscot) from the 1972 through 1992 (primary and general) elections and again from the 2004 through 2012 elections, although it's been in Maine's first congressional district since Maine went down to 2 CDs in 1962, and as far as I know has been in the same CD as the rest of Knox County since it was shifted from Hancock County sometime around 1910).

There are some instances where part of a county is pretty much cut off from the rest of that county (Route 16 in northern Oxford County, Wellington in Piscataquis County (the usually Atlas red town in the southeastern corner, settled by "Back to the landers" in the 1970s I think), and Sagadahoc County which basically is cut in two by Merrymeeting Bay (it's current Senate district includes Dresden in Lincoln County which connects the two halves, but I'm sure candidates aren't above travelling through Brunswick outside the district to get from Bath to Topsham or vice versa)), but every main portion of each county is connected to the main portion of every county it borders by state rounts with the three above exceptions (and that obviously the Bath half of Sagadahoc County doesn't even border, let alone have a direct connection to Androscoggin or Kennebec counties, but both the Bath and Topsham halves of the county are connected to both Cumberland and Lincoln counties).  Perhaps there should be a ban on using the Androscoggin-Sagadahoc-Lincoln route without Kennebec or Cumberland counties (York + Cumberland + Oxford + Franklin + Kennebec is +5.06% based on the 2015 estimates, up from +3.82% in 2010, but could perhaps dip back under the +5% figure).

My recollection from when doing the temporal apportionment of Maine was that Piscataquis fit well with the western part of Penobscot (Piscataquis was the only county that wasn't populous enough for its own district), and the Bangor area had multiple districts (my recollections was faulty - I had to add a few towns to Franklin, Lincoln, and Washington to get them up to 3.0 representatives).

I suspect if  you took the towns with 90% or 95% of the population of the northern counties you would have a better starting point for redistricting (maybe have the people from the north, move to the county seat until redistricting is done, and then let them move back home).

Why is Aroostook populated? Was it not forested as well?

Are you a native Mainer?

Is Piscataquis pronounced as in the song, or is changed to fit the meter?

Maine County Song(mp3)

Yes [to being a Maine native]

That's how it's pronounced.  When I was in high school they didn't have the "The" and "are" at the beginning of the song, so the first line (or two lines, depending on how you look at it) was "Sixteen counties in are state, Cumberland and Franklin," which was noticeably drawn out to fit "Yankee Doodle", and I couldn't resist the temptation to improve the song's fidelity to the original tune by going

"Sixteen counties in our state, Cum-
berland and Franklin, Pis- [deliberate "ss" snake sound]
cataguis and Somerset,
Aroostook, Androscoggin,"

and then, well, I should have just proceeded as normal but I would overdo things even when the humor was exhausted so I would also move syllables in the second half of the song,

"Sagadahoc and Kene-
bec, Lincoln, Knox and Han-
cock, Waldo, Washington and
York, Oxford and Penobscot"

More weird, less of an improvement in the fidelity of the song to the original tune, and less funny, although there is a "cock" in there.

I had decided there was no way I was going to be able to spell Piscataquis, so I googled for "Piscato County Maine" and was directed to the SOS page with the 16 county songs. I wonder if Google was scary smart and knew I was saying that I didn't no how to spell the county names.

I had to figure out if you were a native, because the song is probably only sung in schools.

I don't think there is an equivalent in Texas:

'There's 254 counties in Texas, 254 counties in all
Anderson down and pass it around, 253 counties in all.
'There's 253 counties in Texas, 253 counties in all
Andrews down and pass it around,
.
.
.
[OK class, we'll stop here and finish up tomorrow]
.
.
'There's one county in Texas, one county in all
Zavala down and pass it around'

99 beers on the wall (Youtube)

[jimrtex]

I cranked the NY numbers, and assuming the growth rate of the counties in NY continues at the same rate for the balance of the decade as during the past three years, the NYC metro area plus Sullivan county has 18.001 CD's, and thus the map below is a perfect fit (I drew NY 16-18). I sent the map to Will Yandik, and he was most pleased (his career would end if Columbia County is absorbed into NY-18). He thinks he can beat Teachout with a high turnout election (more moderate voters), but not otherwise (more hardcore Lefties). He says his polls show him in good shape in the general election. So if he can navigate through all of this, he might be in Congress for a long time. It will be kind of nice to have someone in Congress who is a personal friend.

Why wouldn't you finish up NY-16 in Westchester, rather than grabbing a bit of Rockland. Then take the 4 northern counties and place them with northern Westchester in NY-18. NY-17 would be Rockland plus the remnant of Westchester.

And here is the map for upstate NY:

I'd swap Schoharie for a different cut of Herkimer; move all of Madison into NY-22, and remove the fragment of Broome out of it (this is a chop of a UCC, no?). Is the chop of Allegany necessary?

How close is the population of the western 5 districts to 5.000?

Is there a pack rule for the Rochester and Albany UCC? If not, I'd look at putting Columbia and Greene in an Albany-based district.

Has NY-19 moved to Florida?

[jimrtex]

I changed the map. It generated a disfavored bridge chop, and anyway, this version is better in all events. Comment on that one. Yes, the pack rule is alive and well. I created it, follow it where profitable, and protect it against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Herk's chop is small, and the chop to the north is popular, because the area is so remote. Cutting deeper is messy. It could interfere with the east-west arterial in that county, as well as generate a macro-chop. The court this time similarly chopped Herkimer. It's a popular choice. Yes, the chop of Allegheny is probably necessary. There is a 7.2k gap, with only two CD's to absorb it. If that were done, there would be a subunit chop in Erie, or Allegheny (and although Allegheny does not involve a macro-chop, subunit chops should be punished always in some manner), or both.

NY-19 is like the number of a champion baseball player, and NY-19 is that champion. It's the best place on earth, and getting better all the time. So the number has been permanently retired. I hope that helps.

Where was the bridge chop?

Since the Rochester and Albany UCC are going to be divided anyway, why does it matter where the split is?

What if you put all of Herkimer in your Hudson-centric district, and get the extra population for the North County district from Oswego? Won't that improve the splits of Seneca and Chenango?






So you told your friend that hopes to be elected to NY-19 that this NY-22 is just as good? Incidentally other players wore NYY-3 after Babe Ruth before it was retired.

Historically the district was:

Cortland+Onondaga
Clinton+Essex+Franklin+Warren
Otsego
Jefferson
Otesgo+Delaware
Otsego+Delaware+Chenango
Fulton+Hamilton+Saratoga+Schenectaday+Montgomery
St.Lawrence+Franklin
Albany
Columbia+Rensselaer
Westchester
Manhattan (Upper West Side 86th St to 125th St)
Manhattan (Lower East Side, Chinatown?, south of 40th St)
Manhattan (Southern tip, south of 20th St on east, south of 21st St on west)
Manhattan (Southern tip and Lower West Side, south of 14th St on east, south of 86th St on west)
Manhattan (Harlem, 90th St to 188th St)
Bronx+Westchester (part)
Westchester+Rockland+Putnam+Dutchess
etc.

Journeyman minor leaguer, got a cup of coffee in the bigs, last seen playing independent minor league somewhere upstate, Hudson or Troy, maybe?


 

[jimrtex]

Yes, that map is the winner.

Feel free to share it with Yandik, et al.

Poor Will has to deal with the Bernie bulge, which might drive up the turnout of the left in the Dem primary. Will however thinks he will do better with a higher turnout. I tend to disagree. He's clearly positioning himself as the moderate candidate. Bad luck that. If Hillary had it all wrapped up, the turnout would be low, and he would be better positioned.

Isn't the congressional primary in the summer (June 28)?