<story><title>How to get rid of gerrymandering: the math is surprising</title><url>https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-get-rid-of-gerrymandering</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tialaramex</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s crazy that &lt;i&gt;local&lt;/i&gt; elected legislators end up able to manipulate this, but you can&amp;#x27;t really prevent the government of the sovereign entity, in this case the Federal Government (which will presumably be elected in a democracy otherwise what&amp;#x27;s the point) from being able to seize this power if it determines to do so. If it can&amp;#x27;t then it&amp;#x27;s not much of a sovereign government.&lt;p&gt;For example in England an independent Boundary Commission draws these lines. But, they only exist because the government allows them to exist, Parliament can (and often does) ignore what the Commission says, indeed it&amp;#x27;s perfectly normal for a party who expect to lose seats to complain that it&amp;#x27;s unfair, and if that party happens to be in government they will stall boundary reforms. In practice the Commission acts as some sort of bulwark against gerrymandering overall, but it&amp;#x27;s for local stuff that this is more important, because local government just can&amp;#x27;t seize that power for themselves. That&amp;#x27;s where the US approach is crazy.&lt;p&gt;The extra crazy thing in the US is that its sovereign government acts as though it is permanently beholden to dusty old documents (a written &amp;quot;Constitution&amp;quot;), or rather, to the very modern interpretation of those documents by partisan hacks in its &amp;quot;Supreme Court&amp;quot;. This makes no sense, and Americans shouldn&amp;#x27;t put up with it.</text></item><item><author>BbzzbB</author><text>The root of the issue is that the US doesn&amp;#x27;t separate elected lawmakers from district distribution. The fact[0] elected officials can redraw their own electoral map is just beyond belief, in a tough competition with Citizen&amp;#x27;s United for the worst political bug (well... feature) in the US. Cherry on top is calling&amp;#x2F;dubbing one such major and catastrophic instance of gerrymandering &amp;quot;REDMAP&amp;quot;. So brazenly rubbing it in while openly chipping at US democracy.&lt;p&gt;As long as that holds true, theoretical solutions don&amp;#x27;t really matter when those using them will pry any model into their favor. Not that a mathematical solution even makes sense for a district map that accounts of cultural ties for local representation (short of going for proportional elections, which I think is desirable with some form of local representation).&lt;p&gt;In Canada, and I presume most countries of the G7, it&amp;#x27;s an independent entity[1], which one would think goes without saying. That&amp;#x27;s not incorruptible of course, but I wager it&amp;#x27;s held it&amp;#x27;s own for over 60 years here, modern district maps are quite reasonable.&lt;p&gt;0: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;REDMAP&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;REDMAP&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;1: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;5604284&amp;#x2F;us-elections-are-rigged-but-canada-knows-how-to-fix-them&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;5604284&amp;#x2F;us-elections-are-rigge...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>samatman</author><text>The problem posed by gerrymandering is a social problem, not a math problem.&lt;p&gt;There are all kinds of geographical and legal boundaries in a country, with varying levels of affinity to them.  Defining gerrymandering precisely isn&amp;#x27;t possible, it isn&amp;#x27;t even a know it when you see it thing, and in practice it&amp;#x27;s a Russell conjugation: they gerrymander, and we redistrict so that people get proper representation.&lt;p&gt;However, social problems can be solved with maths, law could require something like this to be performed after every census:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sites.math.washington.edu&amp;#x2F;~morrow&amp;#x2F;mcm&amp;#x2F;uw_1034.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sites.math.washington.edu&amp;#x2F;~morrow&amp;#x2F;mcm&amp;#x2F;uw_1034.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think this has considerable advantages, the biggest being that it&amp;#x27;s objective, the next being that just looking at a Voronoi diagram makes it clear what&amp;#x27;s going on.&lt;p&gt;This essentially removes human factors from redistricting, and says you get the Congressional district you get when the population heatmap is relaxed in the simplest way it can be into the appropriate number of partitions.&lt;p&gt;Remember there&amp;#x27;s nothing about this which is &amp;#x27;fair&amp;#x27;, except for the part where people could perhaps be persuaded to abide by the results.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>yaomtc</author><text>In 2018 Michigan voted to create a non-partisan redistricting commission, and from the results of the 2020 census the 13-member commission has selected new districts for the upcoming 2022 elections.&lt;p&gt;The commission is made up of:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 4 Republicans, 4 Democrats, and 5 members who identify with neither party; no member can be a partisan officeholder, an employee of such an officeholder, or a lobbyist&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Citizens can apply, and the Secretary of State picks 200 at random, with party and geographic diversity. Republican and Democratic leaders in the Michigan House and Senate can each reject five names, up to 20 in total. Then the Secretary of State picks the 13 members at random. The commission will have final say over the entire process of redistricting.</text></comment>
<story><title>How to get rid of gerrymandering: the math is surprising</title><url>https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-get-rid-of-gerrymandering</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tialaramex</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s crazy that &lt;i&gt;local&lt;/i&gt; elected legislators end up able to manipulate this, but you can&amp;#x27;t really prevent the government of the sovereign entity, in this case the Federal Government (which will presumably be elected in a democracy otherwise what&amp;#x27;s the point) from being able to seize this power if it determines to do so. If it can&amp;#x27;t then it&amp;#x27;s not much of a sovereign government.&lt;p&gt;For example in England an independent Boundary Commission draws these lines. But, they only exist because the government allows them to exist, Parliament can (and often does) ignore what the Commission says, indeed it&amp;#x27;s perfectly normal for a party who expect to lose seats to complain that it&amp;#x27;s unfair, and if that party happens to be in government they will stall boundary reforms. In practice the Commission acts as some sort of bulwark against gerrymandering overall, but it&amp;#x27;s for local stuff that this is more important, because local government just can&amp;#x27;t seize that power for themselves. That&amp;#x27;s where the US approach is crazy.&lt;p&gt;The extra crazy thing in the US is that its sovereign government acts as though it is permanently beholden to dusty old documents (a written &amp;quot;Constitution&amp;quot;), or rather, to the very modern interpretation of those documents by partisan hacks in its &amp;quot;Supreme Court&amp;quot;. This makes no sense, and Americans shouldn&amp;#x27;t put up with it.</text></item><item><author>BbzzbB</author><text>The root of the issue is that the US doesn&amp;#x27;t separate elected lawmakers from district distribution. The fact[0] elected officials can redraw their own electoral map is just beyond belief, in a tough competition with Citizen&amp;#x27;s United for the worst political bug (well... feature) in the US. Cherry on top is calling&amp;#x2F;dubbing one such major and catastrophic instance of gerrymandering &amp;quot;REDMAP&amp;quot;. So brazenly rubbing it in while openly chipping at US democracy.&lt;p&gt;As long as that holds true, theoretical solutions don&amp;#x27;t really matter when those using them will pry any model into their favor. Not that a mathematical solution even makes sense for a district map that accounts of cultural ties for local representation (short of going for proportional elections, which I think is desirable with some form of local representation).&lt;p&gt;In Canada, and I presume most countries of the G7, it&amp;#x27;s an independent entity[1], which one would think goes without saying. That&amp;#x27;s not incorruptible of course, but I wager it&amp;#x27;s held it&amp;#x27;s own for over 60 years here, modern district maps are quite reasonable.&lt;p&gt;0: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;REDMAP&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;REDMAP&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;1: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;5604284&amp;#x2F;us-elections-are-rigged-but-canada-knows-how-to-fix-them&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;5604284&amp;#x2F;us-elections-are-rigge...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>samatman</author><text>The problem posed by gerrymandering is a social problem, not a math problem.&lt;p&gt;There are all kinds of geographical and legal boundaries in a country, with varying levels of affinity to them.  Defining gerrymandering precisely isn&amp;#x27;t possible, it isn&amp;#x27;t even a know it when you see it thing, and in practice it&amp;#x27;s a Russell conjugation: they gerrymander, and we redistrict so that people get proper representation.&lt;p&gt;However, social problems can be solved with maths, law could require something like this to be performed after every census:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sites.math.washington.edu&amp;#x2F;~morrow&amp;#x2F;mcm&amp;#x2F;uw_1034.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sites.math.washington.edu&amp;#x2F;~morrow&amp;#x2F;mcm&amp;#x2F;uw_1034.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think this has considerable advantages, the biggest being that it&amp;#x27;s objective, the next being that just looking at a Voronoi diagram makes it clear what&amp;#x27;s going on.&lt;p&gt;This essentially removes human factors from redistricting, and says you get the Congressional district you get when the population heatmap is relaxed in the simplest way it can be into the appropriate number of partitions.&lt;p&gt;Remember there&amp;#x27;s nothing about this which is &amp;#x27;fair&amp;#x27;, except for the part where people could perhaps be persuaded to abide by the results.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>throwawaymaths</author><text>&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s crazy that local elected legislators end up able to manipulate this, but you can&amp;#x27;t really prevent the government of the sovereign entity, in this case the Federal Government (which will presumably be elected in a democracy otherwise what&amp;#x27;s the point) from being able to seize this power if it determines to do so.&lt;p&gt;They arguably have.  The voting rights act took away redistricting power from... Bad acting districts.  Some (certainly not all) of those districts have arguably made reasonable amends and are at low risk of &amp;#x27;stealing votes from minorities&amp;#x27; but are stuck having the feds draw their lines due to a shitty history and no desire of the feds to give it back, while arguably racist northern districts get away with some bullshit Scott free because they aren&amp;#x27;t southern.</text></comment>