My understanding is that’s just finding how “compact” a shape the districts are. There’s still plenty of gerrymandering to be done in the positioning and the shapes themselves. Furthermore, why does that necessarily make the most sense?
Ie, splitting a city(with a rural area in a crescent shape around it) into two equal districts down the middle each with a sizable urban and rural population(say this gave 45% rural, 55% urban in each of these districts which is pretty reasonable), vs giving the city its own district and the rural area its own district. The first option may be more “compact” but in my opinion would lead to unfair under representation of the rural voters- same as if the demographics were swapped. Districts are supposed to “represent a community” not just be compact.
This is one of the reasons multi-member, proportional districts make sense. Unfortunately, I think that would take a constitutional amendment for the house of representatives.
This is one of the reasons multi-member, proportional districts make sense.
Yeah I agree. The issue I have with that is just I don’t think it would be very practical, especially for smaller states. The Kentucky legislature now only has 138 members, and as far as I know nobody knows any of them.
The main drawback of the scheme is that you’re usually voting for a party rather than a person. So, not knowing who any of the people actually fits in pretty well into it.
The main drawback of the scheme is that you’re usually voting for a party rather than a person.
Eh, if you had like a “top 3” system then you would be voting for a person. But I agree- voting solely being voting for a party is something I oppose(and why I prefer the US system to parliamentary systems)
Actually, seeing you’re talking about the House elections, yeah I agree that would probably make sense, though it could over-double the size of the House. (And I don’t know that I agree that’s a good thing)
We’ve had GIS for decades. This is an easy algorithmic solve.
The simplest is the shortest-straight-line method. Draw district boundaries with the shortest straight line that divides the population appropriately.
Funnily enough, one of the biggest hurdles to algorithmic districting is the Voting Rights Act, which actually requires some level of gerrymandering to ensure representation of minorities. A algorithm may randomly split a community of color into 4 districts in violation of the VRA.
Ie, splitting a city(with a rural area in a crescent shape around it) into two equal districts down the middle each with a sizable urban and rural population(say this gave 45% rural, 55% urban in each of these districts which is pretty reasonable), vs giving the city its own district and the rural area its own district. The first option may be more “compact” but in my opinion would lead to unfair under representation of the rural voters- same as if the demographics were swapped. Districts are supposed to “represent a community” not just be compact.
The issue with gerrymandering is that there is basically no way around it because all borders are arbitrary.
They could be less arbitrary and more mathematical. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mathematicians-who-want-to-save-democracy/
My understanding is that’s just finding how “compact” a shape the districts are. There’s still plenty of gerrymandering to be done in the positioning and the shapes themselves. Furthermore, why does that necessarily make the most sense?
Ie, splitting a city(with a rural area in a crescent shape around it) into two equal districts down the middle each with a sizable urban and rural population(say this gave 45% rural, 55% urban in each of these districts which is pretty reasonable), vs giving the city its own district and the rural area its own district. The first option may be more “compact” but in my opinion would lead to unfair under representation of the rural voters- same as if the demographics were swapped. Districts are supposed to “represent a community” not just be compact.
And urban/rural divide is just an easy example.
This is one of the reasons multi-member, proportional districts make sense. Unfortunately, I think that would take a constitutional amendment for the house of representatives.
Yeah I agree. The issue I have with that is just I don’t think it would be very practical, especially for smaller states. The Kentucky legislature now only has 138 members, and as far as I know nobody knows any of them.The main drawback of the scheme is that you’re usually voting for a party rather than a person. So, not knowing who any of the people actually fits in pretty well into it.
Eh, if you had like a “top 3” system then you would be voting for a person. But I agree- voting solely being voting for a party is something I oppose(and why I prefer the US system to parliamentary systems)
Actually, seeing you’re talking about the House elections, yeah I agree that would probably make sense, though it could over-double the size of the House. (And I don’t know that I agree that’s a good thing)
We’ve had GIS for decades. This is an easy algorithmic solve.
The simplest is the shortest-straight-line method. Draw district boundaries with the shortest straight line that divides the population appropriately.
Funnily enough, one of the biggest hurdles to algorithmic districting is the Voting Rights Act, which actually requires some level of gerrymandering to ensure representation of minorities. A algorithm may randomly split a community of color into 4 districts in violation of the VRA.
Heres my example from another comment: