Ungerrymandering(and unskewing) squad!

[muon2]

How would these maps be different from the many neutral maps completed during cvparty's exercise a few months ago?

[muon2]

What's the metrics used to determine "fair"?

I was thinking we could make this like the california model. people in this thread advocate for certain, nonpartisan boundaries (keeping a county whole or something) and we do it.

That's not quite how the CA commission worked. It was quite complicated TBH. An IA or OH system with an agreed set of metrics is much easier to manage. There's always the muon rules as a starting point to create a set of metrics if you don't want theirs.

[muon2]

What's the metrics used to determine "fair"?

I was thinking we could make this like the california model. people in this thread advocate for certain, nonpartisan boundaries (keeping a county whole or something) and we do it.

That's not quite how the CA commission worked. It was quite complicated TBH. An IA or OH system with an agreed set of metrics is much easier to manage. There's always the muon rules as a starting point to create a set of metrics if you don't want theirs.

my problem with that type of system is that I believe making good maps is a much more nuanced process, specific to each state. I do, however, plan to follow simple rules like trying to keep counties as whole CD's, like a whole Hamilton county and a whole Jefferson county.

The problem with nuance is that it is incredibly subjective. Real commissions have introduced measurable bias into their maps because they don't appreciate the subjectivity of their sense of the nuance (hello AZ).

There's no doubt that different states have different priorities. The metrics for IA and OH aren't the same, but they are both clear and directly measurable. I advocate for metrics that can produce multiple equally good plans based on the metrics. That then gives the state control over which plan best matches their unique priorities. As I've observed the states during the last two cycles, I can firmly say that picking metrics first then dealing with nuance later gives far less controversial results than trying to sort out nuance without clear metrics.

[muon2]

Some metrics are easier to judge than others, and some are more important to establish as ground rules.

One of the important is compliance with the VRA. Real maps have to do this, but the exact measurement is hard without a data set more detailed than DRA.

Population equality is an easy metric to measure and required for all real maps. The questions are what is the maximum deviation or range permitted for a plan, and will a map be judged better for less inequality.

County integrity has been mentioned and many states require that the county chop or fragment count be included in any report on a redistricting plan. Many also recognize town, townships, and cities as entities to be counted in a chop report. It's a relatively easy metric to measure.

There are others like geometric shape of districts and political performance, but they come with more variations on how one measures them. Agreeing on the three I listed above would go a long way to cut down on subjectivity without sacrificing state-specific flexibility.

[muon2]

1. D+9 (Raleigh)
2. D+13 (Durham)
3. R+1 (E of Raleigh)
4. R+6 (Outer Banks)
5. R+10 (Wilmington)
6. D+1 (Fayetteville)
7. R+12 (E of Charlotte)
8. R+18 (Center of State)
9. D+17 (Charlotte)
10. D+5 (Greensboro)
11. R+15 (Northwest)
12. R+18 (Gastonia)
13. R+9 (Asheville)

Lol what a joke

Which makes my point. Without predefined principles there's nothing to support a particular map other than one's personal taste. That's not a recipe to ungerrymander a plan. It's a recipe to create a plan with different (and unwritten) biases than those of the original map.

[muon2]

Lol what a joke

Which makes my point. Without predefined principles there's nothing to support a particular map other than one's personal taste. That's not a recipe to ungerrymander a plan. It's a recipe to create a plan with different (and unwritten) biases than those of the original map.

Do you have any rules we could follow

I have a whole set of rules on the sticky thread. They are detailed, and maybe more than you want for this exercise. I suggested 3 principles you should decide on VRA districts, county and other political unit integrity, and limits on population inequality. I'll put up simplified version of those from the full muon rules, if you both are interested.

[muon2]

Let me take these one at a time since how you react to each one tells me how you would react to subsequent metrics. I'll start with the VRA and provide 3 options. The two principals in this exercise should come to agreement on an option, perhaps with simple amendments or clarifications.

Option 1: Count the current number of minority-performing districts and keep the same number. If possible the districts should have at least 50% VAP (60% for HVAP) to be acceptable. This is sort of the pre-2010 understanding of how to satisfy the VRA and the simplest to draw and check.

Option 2: Count the current number of minority-performing districts and provide for no fewer districts than the current number. Districts should have at least 40% VAP (50% HVAP) and a sufficient Dem fraction (usually PVI D+6) so that the minority can control the primary and then use crossover white Dems to win the general election. Think of this in terms of the new VA districts this decade and probably more closely reflects current court thinking.

Option 3: In addition to the metric in option 2, maintain contiguous clusters of rural counties that are at least 40% VAP (50% HVAP) as a community of interest where there is less minority population than needed to form multiple districts (otherwise one could have illegal packing). For example one should maintain the Black Belt counties in AL or northeast NC in one CD without cracking them when possible given other constraints. I have lists for the states where this is a factor. This can be applied to municipalities in an urban area, too.

[muon2]

what do you think about my map? Any ways I could make it better?

Don't just report the PVI's - they aren't the only factor that matters. Report on the minority population (BVAP in NC) in those districts designed to be opportunity or influence districts for the minority. Include the population deviation for each district. Include a report of the number of county chops in your plan. Courts and experts look at those factors to determine evidence of gerrymandering.

[muon2]

Let me take these one at a time since how you react to each one tells me how you would react to subsequent metrics. I'll start with the VRA and provide 3 options. The two principals in this exercise should come to agreement on an option, perhaps with simple amendments or clarifications.

Option 1: Count the current number of minority-performing districts and keep the same number. If possible the districts should have at least 50% VAP (60% for HVAP) to be acceptable. This is sort of the pre-2010 understanding of how to satisfy the VRA and the simplest to draw and check.

Option 2: Count the current number of minority-performing districts and provide for no fewer districts than the current number. Districts should have at least 40% VAP (50% HVAP) and a sufficient Dem fraction (usually PVI D+6) so that the minority can control the primary and then use crossover white Dems to win the general election. Think of this in terms of the new VA districts this decade and probably more closely reflects current court thinking.

Option 3: In addition to the metric in option 2, maintain contiguous clusters of rural counties that are at least 40% VAP (50% HVAP) as a community of interest where there is less minority population than needed to form multiple districts (otherwise one could have illegal packing). For example one should maintain the Black Belt counties in AL or northeast NC in one CD without cracking them when possible given other constraints. I have lists for the states where this is a factor. This can be applied to municipalities in an urban area, too.

Remember that districts in North Carolina, Virginia, and Alabama have been thrown out because they were drawn to targets.

I understand, but asking them to draw districts and play the role of VRA lawyers parsing the various decisions seems a bit much for this exercise. DRA doesn't have the data needed to do an ecological analysis or other similar study that might be required to properly assess the districts. Option 1 is closest to the targeting used by the states you mentioned, though they went even further based on section 5 retrogression, so I picked that as the easiest metric.

[muon2]

Our final result for CT. The only county chops are the 3 that make up district 5 outside of Litchfield Co.

1.  Hartford (-70) 60% White, 15% Black, 18% Latino, 5% Asian
2.  Eastern Half (-3969) 83% White, 4% Black, 7% Latino, 3% Asian
3.  New Haven (-1349) 64% White, 14% Black, 17% Latino, 4% Asian
4.  Gold Coast (+1500) 63% White, 12% Black, 18% Latino, 5% Asian
5.  Litchfield (+3980) 85% White, 3% Black, 8% Latino, 3% Asian

Counties don't matter much in CT, they don't have any recognized government. I haven't checked but assume that you kept all the towns and cities whole. Chopping them is far worse in New England than chopping counties.

You haven't weighed in my initial response to the request for metrics, but the population deviations are pretty large for CT. The quota is 714,819 and a 0.5% deviation is 3574 or 7148 for a 1% range. This plan has a maximum deviation of 3980 (0.56%) and a range of 7949 (1.11%). There would be substantial pressure to justify such large deviations and that would require clear standards or the courts would pitch the map.

For example this plan is in the spirit of your design, but cuts the maximum deviation to under 0.3%.

[muon2]

the problem is that map undermines the goals of our map. We intentionally cut out Waterbury from the Litchfield Based district. As for the issue of large deviation, how about this?



No towns split, and cuts the deviation range in half. Pretty much the previous map we made with a few minor tweaks.

As for establishing a metric, I still want to make a few more maps and get some more feedback before we make our own standards. With that being said, we are obviously following the legally required rules (Deviation, VRA, etc...).

BTW, a big thanks to you, muon. We really appreciate the help in establishing a metric, as well as the feedback.

Your Hartford CD is good, and the division between it and the NW CD is better than the one I showed. The problem you might face is what you mean by "ungerrymandering".

Forcing Waterbury into the New Haven CD while making the deviation and shape worse than the version I put up seems to be solely for political purposes. Your CD in the NW is R+4.0 and mine is R+1.5. Gerrymandering means to draw the districts to get a particular political outcome and yours appears to do exactly that.

CT is only a D+6 state and the SKEW metric would predict an ideal delegation of 3D-2R. The partisan SKEW takes the difference between the partisan totals for the seats and compares it to the ideal difference (1 in favor of the Dems in CT). Your plan is 4D-1R and mine was 4D-1even, so your SKEW of 2 is better than mine at 3 for the Dems. If lower SKEW is a primary goal then perhaps your exercise is more along the lines of "unskewing" rather than "ungerrymandering".

[muon2]

That's much less gerrymandered. So have you decided to ungerrymander instead of unskew?

What are the deviations and PVIs?

[muon2]

the problem is that map undermines the goals of our map. We intentionally cut out Waterbury from the Litchfield Based district. As for the issue of large deviation, how about this?

An alternative interpretation is that you placed Waterbury in a a New Haven-dominated district.

While you can draw an eastern district that avoids cities other than smallish New London, I don't think you can do this in the northwest. My preference would be to minimize the intrusion on Hartford, Bridgeport, New Haven.

interesting. what about this?

I do believe there are a few towns split, but otherwise, that looks nice.

From what I can see, there's actually no town splits in this map

Sol is correct, there are three town chops. Farmington is split between the Hartford and Waterbury CDs. Southington is split between the Hartford and New Haven CDs. Prospect is split between the Waterbury and New Haven CDs.

Since it's possible to make a plan with no chops, that would be preferable to one with three chops.

[muon2]

The city lines in DRA don't reflect all of the towns. Only the precinct names give that info. Here's a map of CT towns. The colors indicate what metro area (Census NECTA) each town is in. That's a better guide than counties in CT.

[muon2]

Alright, this is my final product, thanks for everyone's feedback. This is pretty much the best it gets, not to sound overly braggy



0 towns split, minimal population deviation,

Much nicer, but I wouldn't call it minimal population deviation as there are many plans that put all deviations under 1000. What I would say is that it stays under a 0.5% maximum deviation. So I would suggest that your inequality metric not be about lowest deviation, just a low enough deviation.

So to justify a larger deviation than necessary we need to identify the metrics that are more important than population inequality. Metro areas don't seem to be super important here since there are metro area chops that didn't need to happen, such as for New Haven and Enfield (Springfield MA). That suggests that shape is highly important, would you agree?

[muon2]

As an example of what I'm saying, an extreme plan to get minimal deviation with whole towns might be this one. The maximum deviation is 8! Of course the shapes are hideous and metro areas are ignored.



But here the shapes aren't nearly so bad and the maximum deviation is only 11.



Your maximum deviation is over 200 times larger, so a strong erosity metric and/or strict use of metro areas is probably needed to justify the deviation.

[muon2]

Muon2: What is the most compact way you could draw a whole town Connecticut with maximum deviation of 0.05%?

Do you really mean 0.05%? We typically use 0.5% as a maximum since that is reasonably consistent with SCOTUS decisions like Tennant.

[muon2]

Muon2: What is the most compact way you could draw a whole town Connecticut with maximum deviation of 0.05%?

Do you really mean 0.05%? We typically use 0.5% as a maximum since that is reasonably consistent with SCOTUS decisions like Tennant.

0.05% as a middle ground between trying to get as low of a deviation as possible and trying to keep things somewhat compact.

I have a formula in the muon rules that correlates the range with the number of counties or other subdivisions per district. The idea is to measure the chop and the inequality scores and separately measure erosity. Optimal plans will not be able to be improved on one of those measures without making the other larger. That's a better way to find a middle ground than picking a specific value for inequality.

[muon2]

Alright, this is my final product, thanks for everyone's feedback. This is pretty much the best it gets, not to sound overly braggy



0 towns split, minimal population deviation,

Much nicer, but I wouldn't call it minimal population deviation as there are many plans that put all deviations under 1000. What I would say is that it stays under a 0.5% maximum deviation. So I would suggest that your inequality metric not be about lowest deviation, just a low enough deviation.

So to justify a larger deviation than necessary we need to identify the metrics that are more important than population inequality. Metro areas don't seem to be super important here since there are metro area chops that didn't need to happen, such as for New Haven and Enfield (Springfield MA). That suggests that shape is highly important, would you agree?

Ideally I could have better population deviation, but I feel like my map achieved my goals the best they possibly could. The general groupings I wanted were...

1-eastern counties
2.Litchfield+Surrounding areas
3. Most of Fairfield
4. Most of New Haven
5. Most of Hartford

 I know you said counties don't matter, but I really do like these types of groupings, and I definitely would sacrifice near-perfect equality for an otherwise bad map.

Here are the stats on your CDs (it's hard to read them in the screen shot):
New London (+2435) D+3.6
Litchfield (-1945) R+2.4
Fairfield (+1500) D+8.5
New Haven (-778) D+8.9
Hartford (-1210) D+14
The population range is 4380 or 0.61% of the quota. The average deviation is 1573.6 or 0.22%.

Your goals are fine, but it is hard to measure how well you met them. WV succeeded in their case with a large deviation because the court could compare the challengers' maps to the state's map based on specific numeric goals. Here's something like what I think you have so far:

1. Towns are not chopped.
2. Counties should only be chopped if they are larger than one district.
3. Counties should have a whole district within them whenever possible.

These don't exactly match your map, since you don't have a district entirely within New Haven county. Is there a reason why? If you did stick to a district entirely within New Haven and kept deviations down it would probably be defensible as the best plan.

Here's a modification of a map I posted earlier that would meet those goals. Not only does it meet the goals above, but it has a lower range and average deviation than your plan. If you don't want the court to replace your plan with this one with then there needs to be a measurable reason to keep yours.

New London (+2435) D+3.6
Litchfield (-1588) R+1.5
Fairfield (-227) D+8.1
New Haven (+708) D+8.1
Hartford (-1326) D+15
The population range is 4023 or 0.56% of the quota. The average deviation is 1256.8 or 0.18%.

[muon2]

Here's something like what I think you have so far:

1. Towns are not chopped.
2. Counties should only be chopped if they are larger than one district.
3. Counties should have a whole district within them whenever possible.

These don't exactly match your map, since you don't have a district entirely within New Haven county. Is there a reason why? If you did stick to a district entirely within New Haven and kept deviations down it would probably be defensible as the best plan.

Here's a modification of a map I posted earlier that would meet those goals. Not only does it meet the goals above, but it has a lower range and average deviation than your plan. If you don't want the court to replace your plan with this one with then there needs to be a measurable reason to keep yours.

New London (+2435) D+3.6
Litchfield (-1588) R+1.5
Fairfield (-227) D+8.1
New Haven (+708) D+8.1
Hartford (-1326) D+15
The population range is 4023 or 0.56% of the quota. The average deviation is 1256.8 or 0.18%.

I like this map about as much as I like my map, so I would definitely approve of that map.

OK. Does your partner agree with that and the goals I stated to generate the map?

For population would you prefer to measure the range of the average deviation? The range is more straightforward and basically says that the districts with the greatest deviations above and below the quota set the scale for the map and other districts don't play a role for the inequality.

[muon2]

For population would you prefer to measure the range of the average deviation? The range is more straightforward and basically says that the districts with the greatest deviations above and below the quota set the scale for the map and other districts don't play a role for the inequality.

Use of the range is pandering to innumeracy, and has led to map drawers targeting the limits when applied to legislative districts.

We can think of drawing districts as analogous to shooting arrows at a target. We're supposed to be aiming toward the center of the target. Setting a range is like having an inner ring count as 10 points.

But gerryarchers have discovered that you can drive down to the target in a golf cart and put all the blue arrows on one side touching the ring, and all the red arrows on the other. Or even worse they move the target to the left or right so that the ring is still X inches across but is displaced to one side.

Using average deviation, you can have two districts both with 0.3% deviation, and then swap population between the districts and have zero effect on the average deviation. 0.0% and 0.6% is just as good as 0.3% and 0.3%. But if you move one additional person, suddenly the average deviation starts increasing. You have a discontinuity in the first derivative.

Standard deviation penalizes more extreme deviations, like range, but doesn't encourage targeting the limits and doesn't limits the measurement to two values.

Numeracy starts with the basics. Standard deviation is a fine measure, but if the mapper isn't comfortable calculating square roots, it's likely to get ignored as the plan is drawn. Average deviation requires nothing beyond division and range only requires subtraction. I'd rather see someone apply subtraction than use no math at all, and if using range gets people to think about more math as they draw maps, that's a plus for numeracy.

[muon2]

While I wait for singletxguyforfun to weigh in on the goals and map, I thought I'd share what I did for CT based on the muon rules in 2014. For New England I use NECTAs not counties and minimize the chops. The size of Hartford and Bridgeport require each of those NECTAs to be chopped and my plans each make two additional NECTA chops. The four plans vary in terms of inequality and erosity, so that decreasing inequality increases erosity.

muon2 A: range 0.96%, average deviation 1920.4. Score Inequality 17, Chops 4, Erosity 49.


muon2 B: range 0.30%, average deviation 757.6. Score I 15, C 4, E 52.

One observation from the set of maps above is that the lowest erosity plans all involved putting both extra chops on the Hartford NECTA. To get a significantly lower inequality I had to move one of those two chops to another NECTA and I put it on the New Haven NECTA. That cost a lot of erosity.

As a second attempt I tried to place the second extra chop on the Bridgeport NECTA to see if that could also give lower inequalities. I found that it did, and with less increase in erosity than I had with the New Haven chop.

muon 2 C: range 0.14%, average deviation 234.4. Score I 12, C 4, E 62.


muon2 D: range of 0.03%, average deviation 54.4. Score I 9, C 4, E 66.

[muon2]

IL does not require exact equality for legislative districts. The ILSC has ruled that the IL constitution requires a maximum deviation of 0.5%. However, there was a successful case challenging a plan as being arbitrary in design (ie partisan) and not as exact as it could be. The interpretation was ILSC would allow 0.5% if it came with a set of uniformly applied criteria. To avoid losing a partisan plan to a population inequality challenge the districts are drawn with near exact equality.

[muon2]

Arkansas Map that is fair, if a bit dem leaning. What the legislature should have drawn in 2018. Sures up Ross and keeps the Little Rock district possible for Dems.

That looks more like unskewing than ungerrymandering. Here's a version that keeps all the population deviations under 200 with whole counties and without chopping the Little Rock UCC.

[muon2]

Arkansas Map that is fair, if a bit dem leaning. What the legislature should have drawn in 2018. Sures up Ross and keeps the Little Rock district possible for Dems.

That looks more like unskewing than ungerrymandering. Here's a version that keeps all the population deviations under 200 with whole counties and without chopping the Little Rock UCC.

Any map that does not have a seat that is less than an R+3 or so in Arkansas is a GOP rig. Arkansas should really have at least 1 cd with a weak d pvi.

Gerrymandering is the process of drawing districts to get a particular political outcome. Drawing a plan to insure one seat with a Dem PVI is therefore a form of gerrymandering, even if it is for a good public purpose. That's why I pointed out that the plan was more designed to unskew AR rather than ungerrymander it.