[math-fun] gerrymandering measures
I suggest you read this: http://rangevoting.org/TheorDistrict.html and this: http://rangevoting.org/SplitLR.html even better... do some (re)writing of the former...
Warren, Thanks for those two links - they are spot on! I have a couple of comments on the text that I'll send to you privately. Best regards Neil On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Warren D Smith <warren.wds@gmail.com> wrote:
I suggest you read this: http://rangevoting.org/TheorDistrict.html
and this: http://rangevoting.org/SplitLR.html
even better... do some (re)writing of the former...
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-- Dear Friends, I have now retired from AT&T. New coordinates: Neil J. A. Sloane, President, OEIS Foundation 11 South Adelaide Avenue, Highland Park, NJ 08904, USA. Also Visiting Scientist, Math. Dept., Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ. Phone: 732 828 6098; home page: http://NeilSloane.com Email: njasloane@gmail.com
I am wondering what Warren would think of a slightly different approach. Rather than legislate a process that arrives at a reasonable district map, why not legislate a constraint on such maps, letting the legislators be as corrupt as they want within those constraints? I think some very simple constraints would go a long way in placing a ceiling on the amount of possible corruption. For example: A. All districts should be the intersection with the state of a convex region. B. All districts should be the intersection with the state of a latitude-longitude rectangle. It is true that these schemes permit maps to be marred with a few long, thin regions, but the amount of possible horror is greatly reduced. On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 7:48 PM, Neil Sloane <njasloane@gmail.com> wrote:
Warren, Thanks for those two links - they are spot on!
I have a couple of comments on the text that I'll send to you privately.
Best regards
Neil
On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Warren D Smith <warren.wds@gmail.com> wrote:
I suggest you read this: http://rangevoting.org/TheorDistrict.html
and this: http://rangevoting.org/SplitLR.html
even better... do some (re)writing of the former...
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
-- Dear Friends, I have now retired from AT&T. New coordinates:
Neil J. A. Sloane, President, OEIS Foundation 11 South Adelaide Avenue, Highland Park, NJ 08904, USA. Also Visiting Scientist, Math. Dept., Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ. Phone: 732 828 6098; home page: http://NeilSloane.com Email: njasloane@gmail.com _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
Keep in mind there are different ways of gerrymandering. The most common, as was common in California, is to make each district safe for its incumbent. So then districts tend to be heavily either Dems or Repugs, but since the law keeps the districts relatively even in population the legislature is proportioned in the same way as the populace. I'm not sure that's objectionable. It just makes primaries the important elections. The other way, which has been recently implemented in Texas and some other southren states, is to pack all the opposition population into as few districts as possible so that your party then has a narrow majority in all the other districts. In practice it means the Repugs create a few urban districts that are 80% to 90% Dem, while the other districts are 51% Repugs. This then gives the Repugs at 2:1 majority in the legislature even though the majority of voters is Dem. This is more pernicious since a minority effectively rules. Brent Meeker On 6/20/2014 4:53 PM, Allan Wechsler wrote:
I am wondering what Warren would think of a slightly different approach. Rather than legislate a process that arrives at a reasonable district map, why not legislate a constraint on such maps, letting the legislators be as corrupt as they want within those constraints? I think some very simple constraints would go a long way in placing a ceiling on the amount of possible corruption. For example:
A. All districts should be the intersection with the state of a convex region.
B. All districts should be the intersection with the state of a latitude-longitude rectangle.
It is true that these schemes permit maps to be marred with a few long, thin regions, but the amount of possible horror is greatly reduced.
On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 7:48 PM, Neil Sloane <njasloane@gmail.com> wrote:
Warren, Thanks for those two links - they are spot on!
I have a couple of comments on the text that I'll send to you privately.
Best regards
Neil
On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Warren D Smith <warren.wds@gmail.com> wrote:
I suggest you read this: http://rangevoting.org/TheorDistrict.html
and this: http://rangevoting.org/SplitLR.html
even better... do some (re)writing of the former...
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
-- Dear Friends, I have now retired from AT&T. New coordinates:
Neil J. A. Sloane, President, OEIS Foundation 11 South Adelaide Avenue, Highland Park, NJ 08904, USA. Also Visiting Scientist, Math. Dept., Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ. Phone: 732 828 6098; home page: http://NeilSloane.com Email: njasloane@gmail.com _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
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What's objectionable is that when one party has control of the districting, they will often try to arrange districts so that as many as possible contain party members as a majority but as few as possible contain the other party as a majority. This way, a 51% / 49% split could theoretically result in zero districts where the minority party has a chance of winning. --Dan On Jun 25, 2014, at 10:27 AM, meekerdb <meekerdb@verizon.net> wrote:
Keep in mind there are different ways of gerrymandering. The most common, as was common in California, is to make each district safe for its incumbent. So then districts tend to be heavily either Dems or Repugs, but since the law keeps the districts relatively even in population the legislature is proportioned in the same way as the populace. I'm not sure that's objectionable. It just makes primaries the important elections.
participants (5)
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Allan Wechsler -
Dan Asimov -
meekerdb -
Neil Sloane -
Warren D Smith