Texas Redistricting Competition.
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ProgressiveModerate
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« on: July 29, 2021, 10:08:24 AM »
« edited: July 30, 2021, 01:40:28 PM by ProgressiveModerate »

Now that 2020 data is out, I figured this would be a fun idea, to see who can come up with the best Texas R gerrymander as Texas offers a lot of unique challenges and many decisions. Feel free to submit maps you've already made, or new maps.

Minimum Requirements:

-38 districts
-All districts must be contiguous
-Districts may deviate a maximum of 1000 people higher and lower than the target pop
-2020 election data and 2019 VAP and Total Population will be the datasets used
-DRA will be used

Minimum VRA Requirements (You can add other VRA districts, but these are the ones required):

-10 Hispanic VRA districts minimum throughout the state
-2 black > 40% districts

Scoring (post a link to the map here and I can score):

Your compactness score /100

+

1/4th of your county splitting score /100

+

The Trump margin in every Trump seat plugged into this formula, where the x axis is the margins and the y axis is points awarded:

https://www.desmos.com/calculator/ocipaxkr2b

*Any maps that do not fit the requirements will not be scored until they are met*
*Any user can submit as many maps as they like*


What do ya'll say?
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Torie
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« Reply #1 on: July 29, 2021, 12:21:14 PM »
« Edited: July 29, 2021, 12:27:47 PM by Torie »

"No seat shall be above 85% Hispanic"

This requirement forces fajita strips. It is not a VRA requirement to avoid that.

I think the VRA requires at least 10, and perhaps 11, Hispanic seats, i.e. seats that at least 50% HCVAP or performing Hispanic seats. My Pubmander had 11 such seats.
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ProgressiveModerate
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« Reply #2 on: July 29, 2021, 12:57:11 PM »
« Edited: July 29, 2021, 01:16:58 PM by ProgressiveModerate »

"No seat shall be above 85% Hispanic"

This requirement forces fajita strips. It is not a VRA requirement to avoid that.

I think the VRA requires at least 10, and perhaps 11, Hispanic seats, i.e. seats that at least 50% HCVAP or performing Hispanic seats. My Pubmander had 11 such seats.

Ye lol I think I often forget just how Hispanic RGV is
I'll update both criteria so now it's 10 VRA districts and 90% Hispanic
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beesley
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« Reply #3 on: July 29, 2021, 01:29:58 PM »

Bang up for this providing I get the time.
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« Reply #4 on: July 29, 2021, 02:16:24 PM »
« Edited: July 29, 2021, 02:23:42 PM by TRENDZZZ »

When is the deadline?

Feel free to submit whenever. There’s no official deadline

Awesome
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ProgressiveModerate
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« Reply #5 on: July 29, 2021, 02:21:02 PM »

Feel free to submit whenever. There’s no official deadline
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Torie
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« Reply #6 on: July 30, 2021, 10:13:51 AM »

I can put up my TX Pubmander that I drew a couple of months ago, with Cinyc** giving me the 2020 POTUS numbers that are now available on the DRA, if the host of this thread deems that appropriate. The metric other than the damn thing being legal, was assessing the half life of the map (you know the last the decade thing), the care and feeding of Pub incumbents were possible, no matter how hideous they might be, and making dressing up the beast of the mander with the sartorial beauty of lines that please my artistic eye to the extent that does not unduly reduce the caloric content of Pub political gourmands with insatiable* appetites.

*I have read posts elsewhere yipping and yapping about 27R-11D maps. I lack the talent to satisfy that kind of appetite.

**He had the patience of Job as we went through about 15 iterations. It is a miracle that he choose not to cancel me out.
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ProgressiveModerate
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« Reply #7 on: July 30, 2021, 10:51:57 AM »

I can put up my TX Pubmander that I drew a couple of months ago, with Cinyc** giving me the 2020 POTUS numbers that are now available on the DRA, if the host of this thread deems that appropriate. The metric other than the damn thing being legal, was assessing the half life of the map (you know the last the decade thing), the care and feeding of Pub incumbents were possible, no matter how hideous they might be, and making dressing up the beast of the mander with the sartorial beauty of lines that please my artistic eye to the extent that does not unduly reduce the caloric content of Pub political gourmands with insatiable* appetites.

*I have read posts elsewhere yipping and yapping about 27R-11D maps. I lack the talent to satisfy that kind of appetite.

**He had the patience of Job as we went through about 15 iterations. It is a miracle that he choose not to cancel me out.

Sure I’d love to grade it. Post a link here
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Torie
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« Reply #8 on: July 30, 2021, 11:33:19 AM »
« Edited: July 30, 2021, 12:01:11 PM by Torie »

Here it is. I also when possible given the other metrics in play, tried to take cognizance of muni lines. That in the real world is often almost as important as county lines.

If you click the landmarks button, you will see where the Pub incumbents live.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/018eb38b-af4a-4029-bc3c-769262a56a79

Oh my TX-15 is 93% Hispanic, so my map is a fail given your 90% metric. Again, as long as a map is VRA compliant, that really should not be a metric. TX-28 is also a fail, and that CD was not gerrymandered at all, by design. Both CD's just rolled down the RG River. Between that and the next signs of much human life, is mostly rattlesnakes and lizards. Sad!

A couple of things about the VRA and Hispanics.  An Hispanic CD that is gerrymandered to make it Pub performing where there is a more compact Dem performing CD to be drawn depending on the facts is vulnerable under the VRA. Thus, for example, I have two Dem Hispanic CD's nested in Bexar County; I don't think an Hispanic Dem CD drawn by Pubs for partisan reasons that runs from Austin to San Antonio will cut it. A CD cannot count in TX as an Hispanic CD, if it is nether 50% HCVAP, nor Hispanic performing in practice. As to the latter metric, one needs to look at who will be voting in a Dem primary, if a Dem will be winning the General. Thus drawing my TX-18 needed to be drawn very carefully, since it is below 50% HCVAP, but it is triggered under Gingles because two 50% HCVAP CD's can be drawn in Harris County. TX-33 probably needs to be 50% HCVAP and thus the road bridge, and its demographics in a Dem primary.
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ProgressiveModerate
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« Reply #9 on: July 30, 2021, 11:56:09 AM »

Here it is. I also when possible given the other metrics in play, tried to take cognizance of muni lines. That in the real world is often almost as important as county lines.

If you click the landmarks button, you will see where the Pub incumbents live.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/018eb38b-af4a-4029-bc3c-769262a56a79

You attempted a 26-12 map, and your final score is 377:

40 points for compactness
9 points for county splitting
328 points for the partisanship of districts


The only thing I will say is technically TX-15 on your map is *just* above 90% and therefore violates my original rules, but only barely and the more I think about it IDK if that rule is really worth it.

You were quite clean with Dallas and 3 seats in Houston is impressive.

Good job
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Thunder98
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« Reply #10 on: July 30, 2021, 12:08:55 PM »

Here's the gopmander map that I made the other day.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/d3da59b4-3968-4bc1-aa0c-eeef587a4989
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ProgressiveModerate
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« Reply #11 on: July 30, 2021, 01:38:03 PM »


You attempted a 25-13 map, and your final score is 346:

13 points for compactness
3 points for county splitting
330 points for the partisanship of districts

One thing to note is that to say your map has 10 functional VRA districts, you kind of have to stretch what is considered "functional". There's only 8 seats I can make a strong case for (6, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 37). Making your districts 3 and 7 into Hispanic VRA districts wouldn't be too hard I imagine.

One thing that stands out about your map is how clean your RGV is despite only having 1 seat Biden won.
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ProgressiveModerate
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« Reply #12 on: July 30, 2021, 01:41:39 PM »
« Edited: August 03, 2021, 01:00:16 PM by ProgressiveModerate »

Leaderboard:

1. Torie(v2) (380 points, 26-12 map)
2. Torie (377 points, 26-12 map)
3. Thunder98 (346 points, 25-13 map)
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Torie
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« Reply #13 on: July 30, 2021, 03:27:02 PM »
« Edited: July 30, 2021, 03:35:19 PM by Torie »

The partisan scoring formula seems to turn on Dem packing, rather than maximizing the number of reasonably safe Pub CD's, plus whatever else can be put in play without putting the reasonably safe stable at risk. Whatever else in my map would be TX-07, and then the issue for a more marginal CD, is thinking about the trends going forward. For TX-07, do you jettison rather marginal former Pub high SES high rates of voting whites trending not so marginal Dem, for lower rate voting more Dem Hispanics but trending Pub, or not? I went with the Hispanics, jettisoning Bellaire and West  University Place and similar adjacent precincts, and embraced Alief and Bellaire West a couple of miles to the west.

In the real world, you also want to avoid CD's to the extent one can, where such a CD might nominate a Pub that is a very poor fit for higher SES urban whites, to the point that the CD might be put at risk. My Dem trending TX-3 for example is drawn the way it is for a reason. Keep the number of gun toting, MAGA hat wearing, rural hicks down to a point where they are put on ignore in Pub primaries! They are not wanted.
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ProgressiveModerate
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« Reply #14 on: July 30, 2021, 03:59:36 PM »

The partisan scoring formula seems to turn on Dem packing, rather than maximizing the number of reasonably safe Pub CD's, plus whatever else can be put in play without putting the reasonably safe stable at risk. Whatever else in my map would be TX-07, and then the issue for a more marginal CD, is thinking about the trends going forward. For TX-07, do you jettison rather marginal former Pub high SES high rates of voting whites trending not so marginal Dem, for lower rate voting more Dem Hispanics but trending Pub, or not? I went with the Hispanics, jettisoning Bellaire and West  University Place and similar adjacent precincts, and embraced Alief and Bellaire West a couple of miles to the west.

In the real world, you also want to avoid CD's to the extent one can, where such a CD might nominate a Pub that is a very poor fit for higher SES urban whites, to the point that the CD might be put at risk. My Dem trending TX-3 for example is drawn the way it is for a reason. Keep the number of gun toting, MAGA hat wearing, rural hicks down to a point where they are put on ignore in Pub primaries! They are not wanted.

Yeah I wasn't really sure what'd be the fairest way to have an objective metric. I'd figure that the formula would encourage as many R CDs in the sweet spot of R+15-25, since after that the amount of additional points you get for a redder districts reaches an asymptote (i.e. from a partisan standpoint, a R+25 and R+50 district are essentially the same).

There are certain decisions like primary electorate nominating someone who'd be a good fit for the district that are hard to measure, or how "trend proof" a given district is, since a lot of this is subjective (even if there is a consensus on Atlas).
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Torie
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« Reply #15 on: July 30, 2021, 04:20:54 PM »
« Edited: July 30, 2021, 07:25:34 PM by Torie »

The partisan scoring formula seems to turn on Dem packing, rather than maximizing the number of reasonably safe Pub CD's, plus whatever else can be put in play without putting the reasonably safe stable at risk. Whatever else in my map would be TX-07, and then the issue for a more marginal CD, is thinking about the trends going forward. For TX-07, do you jettison rather marginal former Pub high SES high rates of voting whites trending not so marginal Dem, for lower rate voting more Dem Hispanics but trending Pub, or not? I went with the Hispanics, jettisoning Bellaire and West  University Place and similar adjacent precincts, and embraced Alief and Bellaire West a couple of miles to the west.

In the real world, you also want to avoid CD's to the extent one can, where such a CD might nominate a Pub that is a very poor fit for higher SES urban whites, to the point that the CD might be put at risk. My Dem trending TX-3 for example is drawn the way it is for a reason. Keep the number of gun toting, MAGA hat wearing, rural hicks down to a point where they are put on ignore in Pub primaries! They are not wanted.

Yeah I wasn't really sure what'd be the fairest way to have an objective metric. I'd figure that the formula would encourage as many R CDs in the sweet spot of R+15-25, since after that the amount of additional points you get for a redder districts reaches an asymptote (i.e. from a partisan standpoint, a R+25 and R+50 district are essentially the same).

There are certain decisions like primary electorate nominating someone who'd be a good fit for the district that are hard to measure, or how "trend proof" a given district is, since a lot of this is subjective (even if there is a consensus on Atlas).


Oh I see what you did now. That is outstanding. And I lost out because while in comparison, I an extra lean Pub CD, I also had other CD's that fell into likely but not totally safe Pub category, particularly as time goes by. I see now why you had +15 and an X exponent to 9/10th's to drive the asymptote. I am impressed. It works!

And yes, there is no way to put the rest of what I wrote into a scoring formula, even with consensus.

The main other issue is whether to somehow factor in muni chops, which might actually help to foster demographic coherency beyond its own merits.
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ProgressiveModerate
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« Reply #16 on: July 30, 2021, 04:33:23 PM »

The partisan scoring formula seems to turn on Dem packing, rather than maximizing the number of reasonably safe Pub CD's, plus whatever else can be put in play without putting the reasonably safe stable at risk. Whatever else in my map would be TX-07, and then the issue for a more marginal CD, is thinking about the trends going forward. For TX-07, do you jettison rather marginal former Pub high SES high rates of voting whites trending not so marginal Dem, for lower rate voting more Dem Hispanics but trending Pub, or not? I went with the Hispanics, jettisoning Bellaire and West  University Place and similar adjacent precincts, and embraced Alief and Bellaire West a couple of miles to the west.

In the real world, you also want to avoid CD's to the extent one can, where such a CD might nominate a Pub that is a very poor fit for higher SES urban whites, to the point that the CD might be put at risk. My Dem trending TX-3 for example is drawn the way it is for a reason. Keep the number of gun toting, MAGA hat wearing, rural hicks down to a point where they are put on ignore in Pub primaries! They are not wanted.

Yeah I wasn't really sure what'd be the fairest way to have an objective metric. I'd figure that the formula would encourage as many R CDs in the sweet spot of R+15-25, since after that the amount of additional points you get for a redder districts reaches an asymptote (i.e. from a partisan standpoint, a R+25 and R+50 district are essentially the same).

There are certain decisions like primary electorate nominating someone who'd be a good fit for the district that are hard to measure, or how "trend proof" a given district is, since a lot of this is subjective (even if there is a consensus on Atlas).


Oh I see what you did now. That is outstanding. And I lost out because while in comparison, I an extra lean Pub CD, I also had other CD's that fell into likely but not totally safe Pub category, particularly as time goes by. I see now why you had +15 and an X exponent to 9/10th's to drive the asymptote. I am impressed. It works!

And yes, there is no way to but the rest of what I wrote into a scoring formula, even with consensus.

The main other issue is whether to somehow factor in muni chops, which might actually help to foster demographic coherency beyond its own merits.

Thanks lol. Asymptotes are useful in politics.

Yeah. Do you know if there are any ways to calculate the number of chops?
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Torie
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« Reply #17 on: July 31, 2021, 08:26:29 AM »
« Edited: July 31, 2021, 08:39:48 AM by Torie »

"Do you know if there are any ways to calculate the number of chops?"

How do you calculate compactness and county splits now?

For this exercise, I would probably just count city chops, which show up on the DRA when you click the city button. It is a good discipline to take those lines into account, because I have learned over time that they really matter, and that at the margins giving up a little bit of partisan advantage to respect them is a good strategy.

In the highly unlikely event that you get a tie, you might either sum the total amount of population deviation from ideal, or the maximum deviation between the least populated and most populated CD as a tie breaker. My max also happened to be 1,000 for deviation, but I cut it down to 600, before submitting my map as the one change that I made, so my total is just under 1,200 for the second approach. But that I guess is all premature perhaps until we get the final census numbers into the VRA.

However, for purposes of Gingles, the HCVAP percentages are probably high enough to trigger Gingles for a second Hispanic CD in Houston, and one in the Metroplex, plus perhaps in the oil patch, although that is more problematical, since it is a Pub CD. It is a rather precarious high wire act, because to the extent TX-23 is deemed gerrymandered, and thus a candidate is elected that a majority of Hispanics there do not prefer, you have a VRA risk, even if the CD is over 50% HCVAP. Thus I was pretty careful to minimize anything that looked like a gerrymander around it.

I do know that if the Pubs draw an Austin to San Antonio CD that is intended to count as an Hispanic CD, and is drawn that way as a more effective Dem vote sink than a second nested Hispanic CD in Bexar County, that will generate an instant VRA lawsuit that has considerable merit, because that CD can in no way be considered compact and takes in two disparate Hispanic nodes far away from each other.  I doubt you can do that under the VRA when a more compact Hispanic CD is available taking in just one node. Although a closer case, you would have the same issue in the Metroplex, but there it is not possible to draw a performing Hispanic CD in Dallas County plus immediately adjacent territory. There you need to draw the road bridge to the NW corner of Ft. Worth.

When Gingles is triggered, entitling a minority to a CD, the grand unified theory of the VRA is that gerrymandering to effectively screw that minority out of being able to elect a candidate that a majority of them prefer, is a risky scheme. That is how I parse it anyway. So the best defense is to say, gerrymander, what gerrymander? There is no gerrymander that pertains to the subject real estate. You Dems are hallucinating!
 
One hypothetical example of that would be say, if TX-23 just wasn't Pub enough the way that I drew it, so instead one drew it to shed more of Bexar, or somewhat Dem areas in the Rio Grande area, and replaced the Hispanics with those in majority HCVAP Pub Ector County. Now you have a CD with two distinct and disparate Hispanic nodes that is unnecessary, and to exacerbate matters, my TX-11 ceases to be majority HCVAP. That would be the makings of a reasonably meritorious VRA lawsuit. I don't think there is much wiggle room to vary much from the way that I drew south/southwest Texas without assuming considerable VRA risk is my conclusion from all of this.

TX is the best thing ever to do another test drive of the VRA. Smiley One Pub defense, if they get cocky, is to argue that TX Hispanics are just too Pub now, and so it is time to deep six Gingles as it applies to them.

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ProgressiveModerate
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« Reply #18 on: July 31, 2021, 02:01:48 PM »

"Do you know if there are any ways to calculate the number of chops?"

How do you calculate compactness and county splits now?

For this exercise, I would probably just count city chops, which show up on the DRA when you click the city button. It is a good discipline to take those lines into account, because I have learned over time that they really matter, and that at the margins giving up a little bit of partisan advantage to respect them is a good strategy.

In the highly unlikely event that you get a tie, you might either sum the total amount of population deviation from ideal, or the maximum deviation between the least populated and most populated CD as a tie breaker. My max also happened to be 1,000 for deviation, but I cut it down to 600, before submitting my map as the one change that I made, so my total is just under 1,200 for the second approach. But that I guess is all premature perhaps until we get the final census numbers into the VRA.

However, for purposes of Gingles, the HCVAP percentages are probably high enough to trigger Gingles for a second Hispanic CD in Houston, and one in the Metroplex, plus perhaps in the oil patch, although that is more problematical, since it is a Pub CD. It is a rather precarious high wire act, because to the extent TX-23 is deemed gerrymandered, and thus a candidate is elected that a majority of Hispanics there do not prefer, you have a VRA risk, even if the CD is over 50% HCVAP. Thus I was pretty careful to minimize anything that looked like a gerrymander around it.

I do know that if the Pubs draw an Austin to San Antonio CD that is intended to count as an Hispanic CD, and is drawn that way as a more effective Dem vote sink than a second nested Hispanic CD in Bexar County, that will generate an instant VRA lawsuit that has considerable merit, because that CD can in no way be considered compact and takes in two disparate Hispanic nodes far away from each other.  I doubt you can do that under the VRA when a more compact Hispanic CD is available taking in just one node. Although a closer case, you would have the same issue in the Metroplex, but there it is not possible to draw a performing Hispanic CD in Dallas County plus immediately adjacent territory. There you need to draw the road bridge to the NW corner of Ft. Worth.

When Gingles is triggered, entitling a minority to a CD, the grand unified theory of the VRA is that gerrymandering to effectively screw that minority out of being able to elect a candidate that a majority of them prefer, is a risky scheme. That is how I parse it anyway. So the best defense is to say, gerrymander, what gerrymander? There is no gerrymander that pertains to the subject real estate. You Dems are hallucinating!
 
One hypothetical example of that would be say, if TX-23 just wasn't Pub enough the way that I drew it, so instead one drew it to shed more of Bexar, or somewhat Dem areas in the Rio Grande area, and replaced the Hispanics with those in majority HCVAP Pub Ector County. Now you have a CD with two distinct and disparate Hispanic nodes that is unnecessary, and to exacerbate matters, my TX-11 ceases to be majority HCVAP. That would be the makings of a reasonably meritorious VRA lawsuit. I don't think there is much wiggle room to vary much from the way that I drew south/southwest Texas without assuming considerable VRA risk is my conclusion from all of this.

TX is the best thing ever to do another test drive of the VRA. Smiley One Pub defense, if they get cocky, is to argue that TX Hispanics are just too Pub now, and so it is time to deep six Gingles as it applies to them.



Texas is interesting because it has probably one of the most complex VRA applications in the country. To some degree, thank god to this and Ds strong geographical advantage in the state, because it constrains the Republicans options significantly.

The one area where VRA doesn't really matter as much for the GOP is the Dallas metro area. This is because a black VRA district is already pretty compact and a pretty natural D pack, and while a Hispanic district may not be as compact, it's also a pretty natural D pack.

In Houston VRA makes the GOP's job a bit trickier because drawing 2 Hispanic VRA districts and a black one makes it difficult for the GOP not to draw a 4th sink since some of the Hispanic parts of the Houston metro area that the districts would need to take in to become VRA compliant aren't deep blue or are even red-leaning. Furthermore, in order for TX-9 to be VRA it limits how much it can take in to the west meaning all 3 Houston packs are shifted to the East of where they should ideally be in an optimal 3-pack map of Houston.

San Antonio and Austin are interesting, since right now the cities only share 2 packs. A 3rd pack will almost certainly need to be added, but if VRA says that new district has to be majority Hispanic and in Bexar and not the notorious TX-35 strip, then it's going to make a sustainable gerrymander of Austin metro area which it growing insanely fast. Though, since San-Antonio would be more secure, there are more red rural areas that can be dedicated to cracking Austin suburbs. I do wonder if a strong case can be made for a relatively compact 40% Hispanic opportunity seat that stretches from SE Travis county into Hays and maybe further down the I-35 corridor such as the one below:



This could be interesting because if so, then the Austin-San Antonio region could go from needing only 2 D packs to 4.

RGV and the Mexican border is obviously the elephant in the room. The area is so Hispanic and geographically large that at this point you kind of have to go out of your way to avoid a Hispanic pack. The only thing I'm pretty certain of is that TX-16 will stay more or less in it's current form. In order for TX-23 to be a functional VRA seat that leans right, it probably needs to be slightly over 60% Hispanic as as you said, a VRA seat has to be viable both in the general election but also the primary. Taking in the Hispanic areas of red Odessa seems to be their best bets. A second VRA seat based in Bexar could be reason for it to shed most of it's Bexar county portion.

As for RGV proper, I see 3 options.

1. The GOP tries to get away with a Hispanic (Dem) pack along the South Border that takes in more urban areas, and then you have 3 R-leaning fajitas. Their argument could essentially be to avoid a Hispanic pack, you have to make a map that's not very compact, and also argue it keeps more COIs together, and that after the 2020 shifts, these 3 fajitas would be able to elect Rs of their choice. They could probably get a relatively safe gerrymander out of this assuming it passes the courts.

2. The GOP does 4 (or more) fajitas. They say something along the lines of "well we wanted to make as many Hispanic VRA districts as possible". These fajitas would all likely be Clinton - Trump districts, and they risk a dummymander if 2020 was the exception and not the rule.

3. They just say screw it and draw a fair map in South Texas or the courts step in.
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Torie
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« Reply #19 on: July 31, 2021, 04:02:45 PM »
« Edited: July 31, 2021, 05:09:04 PM by Torie »

Would you put that blue blob on a map so I can figure out what it is?

Houston is tricky, and thus the lines that I drew (butt ugly on the Harris-Ft Bend County line), that manage to squeeze out a Pub leaning CD but no more. The requirement of a second performing Hispanic CD does reduce the efficiency of the gerrymander. But I don't see the need to give away the lean Pub CD to either comply with the VRA or avoid a dummymander. Do you have a different take, or think I did draw a dummymander in the sense that to squeeze out the lean CD, I put at risk one or more other CD's?

Thanks.
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ProgressiveModerate
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« Reply #20 on: July 31, 2021, 04:32:18 PM »

Oops I already deleted the map sorry. Here's an image with rough county outlines though if it helps you



Your map seems pretty good because 7 seems like the only seat in the Houston area that has a decent chance of falling this decade. Considering trends tend to lag, and some could argue that the unique circumstances of 2020 accelerated suburban shifts past where they really are, I think it's fair to assume that to start the decade any given suburban district in Houston is prolly really 5 points redder on the congressional level than how it voted for 2020 Pres. 7 is obviously the ultimate suburban, and as you pointed out, a true Trumpist would probably have a tough time winning that primary.
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Torie
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« Reply #21 on: July 31, 2021, 04:58:19 PM »
« Edited: July 31, 2021, 05:06:56 PM by Torie »

OK. Thanks. Opportunity districts are not required by the VRA. In my gerry, the first place I sliced into in Travis County to do a quad-chop of the county was low voting Hispanic precincts. Those are absolutely the best* to use in Pubmanders. Not legally required opportunity districts are just toxic. And drawing one would certainly reduce the score one would get from you. Smiley

*TX-07 loves them too - see above.
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Torie
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« Reply #22 on: August 01, 2021, 12:12:38 PM »
« Edited: August 03, 2021, 11:00:22 AM by Torie »

I revised my map to pump up my score in the Houston area. TX-14 was just too Pub, so Jasper County was transferred from TX-14 to TX-08, which makes the map look prettier as well. Not sure how you measure compactness, but maybe this change generates some points on that metric. It should.  So to effect the above, changes were made to TX-7, 8, 10, 14, 18 and 22. I missed a small Hispanic precinct on the border of TX-10 and TX-18, that needed to be moved to TX-18, so I took the opportunity to correct that error as well. The goal was to get TX-07 up to a 7.0% margin, while keeping all the adjacent Pub CD's at at least an 18% Trump margin, mostly by TX-08 sharing  its "excess" Trump margin a bit more "equitably,"  while avoiding any more county chops. Note that TX-08 and TX-14 now meet at both ends, entirely wrapping around the CD’s in Harris and Montgomery County.  

I think I got just about everything that was out there for TX-07 now, subject to the above constraints.


https://davesredistricting.org/join/0e1f2d77-378b-45f7-80cf-fe1208e14eb3






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dpmapper
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« Reply #23 on: August 01, 2021, 02:06:13 PM »

I like the general shape of your function, but I would give a small positive score to districts that Trump lost by a little bit.  In other words, have the zero be around Trump -2/-3.  Tossup districts (even if Biden won by a little bit) should be worth more than a D pack. 

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ProgressiveModerate
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« Reply #24 on: August 03, 2021, 12:59:40 PM »

I revised my map to pump up my score in the Houston area. TX-14 was just too Pub, so Jasper County was transferred from TX-14 to TX-08, which makes the map look prettier as well. Not sure how you measure compactness, but maybe this change generates some points on that metric. It should.  So to effect the above, changes were made to TX-7, 8, 10, 14, 18 and 22. I missed a small Hispanic precinct on the border of TX-10 and TX-18, that needed to be moved to TX-18, so I took the opportunity to correct that error as well. The goal was to get TX-07 up to a 7.0% margin, while keeping all the adjacent Pub CD's at at least an 18% Trump margin, mostly by TX-08 sharing  its "excess" Trump margin a bit more "equitably,"  while avoiding any more county chops. Note that TX-08 and TX-14 now meet at both ends, entirely wrapping around the CD’s in Harris and Montgomery County.  

I think I got just about everything that was out there for TX-07 now, subject to the above constraints.


https://davesredistricting.org/join/0e1f2d77-378b-45f7-80cf-fe1208e14eb3








Sorry for the late response. I updated your score:

You attempted a 26-12 map, and your final score is 380:

41 points for compactness
9 points for county splitting
330 points for the partisanship of districts

It's only a 3 point increase but considering how scoring works for this that's actually pretty good increase.
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