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North Carolina Congressional Map Ruled Unconstitutionally Gerrymandered (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A panel of federal judges struck down North Carolina's congressional map on Tuesday, condemning it as unconstitutional because Republicans had drawn the map seeking a political advantage (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source). The ruling was the first time that a federal court had blocked a congressional map because of a partisan gerrymander, and it instantly endangered Republican seats in the coming elections. Judge James A. Wynn Jr., in a biting 191-page opinion, said that Republicans in North Carolina's Legislature had been "motivated by invidious partisan intent" as they carried out their obligation in 2016 to divide the state into 13 congressional districts, 10 of which are held by Republicans. The result, Judge Wynn wrote, violated the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection. The ruling and its chief demand -- that the Republican-dominated Legislature create a new landscape of congressional districts by Jan. 24 -- infused new turmoil into the political chaos that has in recent years enveloped North Carolina. President Trump carried North Carolina in 2016, but the state elected a Democrat as its governor on the same day and in 2008 supported President Barack Obama.
Purposely changing election maps in order to effectively disenfranchise citizens is unconstitutional? You've got to be kidding me.
...however, I'm not holding my breath.
In all seriousness, I do hope that something like this will be implemented in its stead:
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
they went along with the Gerrymandering because the R's carved out some safe districts for them
Indeed . . . and in blue states, the roles are reversed and Democrats directly gerrymander just as vigorously. E.g., deep blue Maryland's horribly gerrymandered map is on the Supreme Court's docket for this term.
For example, check out the work of Moon Duchin and the Matrix Geometry and Gerrymandering Group at Tufts: http://sites.tufts.edu/gerryma... Chronicle of Higher Ed profile: https://www.chronicle.com/arti... And other mathematicians also: http://www.ams.org/publication...
> For example, the most common type of gerrymandering in North Carolina is to put all the black voters into one district.
But that's called a majority-minority district and is actually encouraged by some legislation or policy. The idea was to increase the number of black and other minority representatives in Congress and that was done by combining all the voters into districts.
The alternatives would be to slice up the black vote so it i always a tiny minority in white districts. You then lose the black representative.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Political affiliation isn't a protect class.
You're wrong. Go read Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims.
To insist that the redistricting somehow represents the greater population is the usurpation of redistricting task by the courts.
Yes, that is what the administration of justice requires. They also have to take children from their parents, seize private property and order people imprisoned.
I admit this is a fairly fundamentalists interpretation, but what objective measurement are the courts using to discern Good O'l Gerrymandering from "Insidious"?
This mystery is revealed in the court order.
I would say it would be best done as unsupervised clustering tied into a GIS system. I have written my local reps at my state house and state senate about it several times but they never want to hear it because it takes away their power to help ensure they have a safe seat.
Basically my proposal has been:
1. Initially all districts are centered at their current representative's house. If there are fewer seats this time then last then district centers are removed randomly until the correct number is reached. If there are more seats this time then last then district centers are added randomly until the correct number is reached.
2. The district with the lowest population picks first.
3. Areas (houses, town homes, apartments, etc) are added to a district such that the closet one available to the center added first. If there are 2 equal distance then preference is given for the ones that are on the same side of the road, in the same town, then in the same county. If neither of those are better satisfied then pick one at random and add it to the district.
4. Repeat steps 2&3 until all areas have been chosen.
5. Calculate the new center of each district.
6. If the new center of any district has changed areas from where it was in step 5 of the previous run (step 1 if this is the first run) then save the new centers and clear out the districts assigned to each district and start at step 2.
7. if the new centers of all districts have not changed areas from where it was previously this is your new district map.
I am sure that there are a few more tweaks that are need to ensure that each district has the same (I believe MN law is +/- 1) number of people in it but this seems like a much more reasonable solution instead of the bickering that happens every 10 years. As an added bonus this requires writing the program once and then every 10 years drop it on a computer (really any somewhat modern desktop would be able to do this) and let it run for a bit. You no longer need to pay for the old human process and likely would get result much quicker.
Time to offend someone