Gerrymandering Using Census Clustering And GIS

dpplgngr writes "According to this BBC article, Map redrawing angers U.S. Democrats, Republicans in Texas are making use of Census data and mapping software to redraw districts, signficantly altering the election process, and resulting in the lowest overturn of incumbents in history."

Comments

ancient

[TheSHAD0W]

Gerrymandering is an old, old game. There's already a solution for it; computer models exist that can generate maps that are fair. But with all the yelling the Democrats are doing right now, they'd never consider adopting a map-based system because then they'd lose the opportunity to gerrymander next time.

Gerrymandering limited by increase in House reps

[captnitro]

I think one very effective way to reduce the effects of gerrymandering, and other seeming corruption, is an increase in the size of representatives in the House, which was locked at 433 in 1911 (with provisions for the allowance of representatives for New Mexico and Arizona, when they became states). With the admittance of Alaska and Hawaii, it was temporarily raised to 467. After the 1960 census, it dropped to 435 again.

If the 2000 census is correct, we have around 294 million people in the United States. This makes for a ratio of one representative : 675,862 constituents. In 1910, the ratio was about 1 : 200,000.

I don't foresee the population of the United States coming down any time soon, which is all the reason you need to see that this issue is only becoming more important, not less -- having a veritable Senator for your district who cannot be voted out and is distant from your needs breeds apathy and alienation.

While many people I've talked to think that the number of representatives is fixed by the Constitution, it isn't -- it was fixed by Congress, and Congress can unfix it as well.

Observe what Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution has to say on the subject:

"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three."

So apparently, they thought 30,000 : 1 was a bit of a low ratio to be sensible. By that count, we'd have 9,800 representatives. But having only 1,200 reps would mean having a ratio of 1 : 245,000; more than halfing the current 1 : almost 700,000 ratio.

There are obviously logistical problems, like voting, space, offices, and so on. Also, it would significantly limit the amount of power reps currently have, which I can see as a good thing and a bad thing. But in a day where it seems nobody doesn't have a lawyer, why would it be so crazy to think that everyone should know their representative?

New map shows..

[maskedbishounen]

New map shows that Canada really is part of the United States!

Okay, off to RTFA now, eh? :)

One-Sided Reporting

[CustomFort]

The BBC is talking about this as if this were the Republicans in Texas coming out of the blue and just turning this on the Democrats. What a load of shit.

For those of you who don't remember, or don't care, Texas was a Democrat state a rather short period of time ago (about 20 years). Most of the uproar is from the Republicans trying to reverse the grossly partisan gerrymandering that took place just a little while ago to keep the Republicans from coming to power.

The Texas Constitution requires new boundaries to be drawn every 10 years. In 1991, the last redistricting, both the Senate and the House were strongly controlled by Democrats ( 77% in the Senate and 62 % in the House). http://www.fairvote.org/redistricting/reports/rema nual/tx.htm
That explains very well with maps what exactly happened in 1991, and even further back.

Take my area for example. US District 21 extends from San Antonio all the way to El Paso, making it one of the largest districts in Texas. This was created to make a very strong Republican District so that the rest of the districts in the area could feed off of the Democrats.

Even though the Bexar County Area is about 65% Republican, our representation in the state legislature is 70% Democrat. And one of those 3 Republicans is a moderate.

Another interesting fact is that while it is illegal to redistrict based on race, it is perfectly legal to do it based on Political Parties.

Re:One-Sided Reporting

[moof1138]

"Most of the uproar is from the Republicans trying to reverse the grossly partisan gerrymandering that took place just a little while ago to keep the Republicans from coming to power."

As a Texan, I have to say that is a totally false and highly partisan mischaracterization of the situation prior to the Republican's abusive redistricting. What actually happened was that both parties had fought in our legislature and could not come up with a solution for the redistricting. So the map was drawn by a nonpartisan panel of federal judges, based on the 2000 Census figures. A year later, the Republicans got enough control to push their new redistricting along, and a new Republican map was pushed through which was not based on any new Census information, but was purley designed to try to get a political advantage.

There is only one way to fix it

[infonography]

Simple technical solution. Actually a Geometry solution. Make no district with more then 6 corners. Include the borders of a state in that requirement. Make them any size you want but six corners max. Anything else is gerrymandering.

Count this as a published patent.

For us non-US citizens...

[fallacy]

Apologies for my naivety (and perhaps ignorance), but could you explain to me - as a non-US citizen and not particularly au-fait with US politics - how gerrymandering is not classed as effectively cheating?
From what I've just read, it appears that this is simply a way of increasing the vote for a particular party within the newly-drawn district, and thus lands more seats.

Matter of degree

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

I agree with you that algorithmic district drawing is the only real solution, and with the Dems being disingenuous (this favors neither Dems nor Republicans--only incumbents).

But this is a NEW big deal. Not because gerrymandering is new, but because its become so very powerful and accurate. It used to be that the House was the agent of change and the Senate was supposed to be the cautionary brake. Now the House has become gerrymandered so badly its considered even more stable for incumbents than the Senate. The House of Representatives has basically lost all purpose--in the space of a few decades of computer modelling, the House has become almost invulnerable to popular will. Much like the Senate pre-17th amendment, representatives are de facto appointed by the state legislatures. Except that those same legislatures are gerrymandering themselves as well. Without correction, we will have a self appointed Politburo running state governments and the House.

Caliper's Mapitude

[waldoj]

I work in politics. The program that we use for this is Caliper's Mapitude. It's a bad-ass little package. Perhaps the most amusing function is the ability to pinpoint an address (the incumbent's) and construct a district that includes every house in the neighborhood but that one, pitting two incumbents of the same party against each other and leaving an open seat for the redistricting party. I'd love to own a copy, just to play with, but for $500, I'd rather have a new iPod. :)

I don't know why I couch this is "this party" and "other party" language -- it's the Republicans, because they had dominance in many states after the 2000 census, just as technology had advanced sufficiently to turn redistricting into more of a science. If we Democrats had the majority then, we probably would have dome the same thing (though I'd like to hope I'd have argued against it in favor of redistricting by disinterested parties, not that what I say matters to anybody in any way).

-Waldo Jaquith

Set up Boundary Commissions

[rpjs]

Here in the UK we have an independent Boundary Commission that re-draws Parliamentary seats. It can receive submissions from the political parties, but it is required to produce a map that ensures constituencies of roughly equal population (about 70K electors IIRC), and - crucially - form a distinct community, or part of one (i.e. a town can be split into two or more constituencies if the population is sufficient).

Now, the distinct community bit is obviously open to intepretation, but it does mean that some of the strange districts some US states have come up with straggling long thin arms halfway across the state wouldn't be allowed.

Admittedly, sometimes balancing the requirements of population vs community can come up with oddities: at present the Western Isles of Scotland are rather over represented with one MP for around 30K electorate, whereas the Isle of Wight is under-represented with one MP for around 100K as it's not quite big enough to qualify for two constituencies. In both cases the Commission felt that the places were too distinct a community, being islands, to be combined with seats on the mainland.

I know US posters will respond that there's no way in thousand years that the politicians would willingly give up this power, but surely in those states that allow popular initiative it ought to be feasible to set up a pressure group to campaign for it?