Ranked Vote: How To Reform Redistricting And End Political Gerrymandering?

Well, without having the state's exact population distribution numbers on hand, keep in mind that these drawings are simply rough (some of them very rough) approximations of what the districts would look like using ring method in order to explain the concept. Basically though, there are several different ways to handle it. I've represented the two population centers with little black boxes on the maps.

1. The simplest way of doing things, would be to pick a point in between your two population centers, perhaps roughly wherever the population 'center of mass' would exist. From this point, draw a ring around the center expanding it until it contains exactly 1/5th of the state's total population (because we are wanting to split things into 5 districts). This will form our central district. After that, draw a second ring around the first one, until the area in between the two rings also contains a fifth of the state's population. Then draw a third, and finally a fourth and you have your 5 districts. If we number the districts 1-5 starting from the center, note that that little tip in the upper left hand corner of the state is part of the 4th district.

2. Alternatively, we can use the quadrant or segmentation method. It starts off the same way, a ring around the chosen center point containing a fifth of the population. But this time, after drawing the initial ring, we segment the outer area up using straight lines, again, doing so in such a way that each resulting area in between the lines contains a fifth of the population. Again we end up with 5 districts. Note that the segments including the population centers will be a bit smaller than segments for less densely populated areas.

3. Now, if we want to have a separate center point per population center, then it gets a bit more complicated. For this, we start off by drawing central rings around each population center, again, each just big enough to encompass one fifth of the population. These are our first and second districts. Then we draw rings around those two rings and expand them until the combined area between the central rings and the outer rings is also a fifth of the population. This combined area will make up our third district. Repeat one more time, and we have our fourth and fifth districts.

4. Alternatively, we can segment these multiple ring districts as well. If we do, we'd start by separating any overlapping rings. This is where a human will have trouble. Instead, here an algorithm will need to figure out how big the rings need to be while also taking into account the overlapping areas such that each resulting district still contains a fifth of the population.

5. This is an example of a single point multi-segmented district map with 12 districts instead of 5.

6. Multi point segmented map with 8 districts.

7. This is what a completely unsegmented multi-point map might look like if we added a third population center and corresponding center point.
It contains 5 districts.

8. An unsegmented multi-point map with only 4 districts.

So yeah, as you can see there are quite a few different variations on the ring method even beyond what's currently included in the options list. If there's one you particularly like though let me know and I can add it to the list. These maps all look quite different from each-other, some prettier than others...but they all for the most part have the same basic idea behind them. The urban population centers get their district(s), rural outermost areas get their district(s), and the intermediate areas between them get districts which are a mix of urban and rural. (aka suburban districts)

-Meta

 

Instead of continuing to tell me what I think, why don't you focus more on telling us what you think?
You've made a lot of posts in this thread, but the way I see it, you haven't really explained your position much,
other than to say that you feel certain minority groups ought to be able to have more representation than others.
But in doing so you haven't even mentioned or acknowledged the Ring Method I referenced.
If your primary concern is to ensure that both urban and rural voters get at least some representation,
then why not explain why the ring method is insufficient for that goal? And for that matter,
Why not answer that other question I asked you before? What do you think is more important to our government?
An individual politician, or the way a governing body like our house congress functions as a whole?

-Meta

 

That's the thing though, according to the recent Top Issues Vote, as political forum members see it,
faults in the political system (Gerrymandering included) are among this nation's top problems!

And it makes sense that people feel that way. If there are issues with how our political system functions,
that can make our government much less effective when it comes to being able to solve all the other issues.

-Meta

 

Lol, compared to the posts I made in the discussion thread, I actually thought that one was pretty short.
But OK, here goes my attempt at making it shorter...

Districts exist so that voters can put together a group of representatives which reflect their views. Fairness dictates that everyone should have an equal say as to who those representatives are. Certain types of people should not get more or less say than others.

If Gerrymandering gives some groups more influence on congress than others (which it does) then it isn't fair and needs to be gotten rid of so that the 1 person 1 vote principle can be maintained. If you try to make the votes of particular minority groups worth twice as much as everyone elses votes, then that isn't fair to other minority groups who don't get the same treatment, and it isn't fair to the majority.

If you want to break things down based on urban versus rural etc. representation, Gerrymandering should not be used for that. Instead, look towards something like the Ring Method or one of its variants.

-Meta

 

I don't think gerrymandering affects the way people vote. (unlike some other systemic issues)
However, if you're suggesting that gerrymandering doesn't have any impact on the outcome,
then you should have no problem with us anti-gerrymandering folk getting rid of it.

-Meta

 

I'm pretty sure I did mention this in another post, but I'll say it again here.
The problem with gerrymandering is that it results in a congress which is not representative of what the people voted for.
Or to put it another way...it leads to "wasted" votes, or, more accurately, it maximizes "wasted" votes in order to give some group or some politician an advantage.

Like I said several times before...if we have a congressional election in which 60% of voters overall vote for candidates from the green party and 40% of voters vote for candidates from the yellow party, and we somehow end up with either a congress in which 100% of the representatives are from the green party (i.e. they get significantly more representation than they should have) or a case in which the minority yellow party somehow ends up with majority representation in congress...then something has gone seriously wrong.

-Meta

 

Here it sounds to me like you are talking proportional representation.
As in...one of these:
Party-list Proportional Representation
Single Transferable Vote
Mixed-member Proportional Representation

That is one class of solution to gerrymandering, but if you don't like it, do note that it is not the only one.
Just look at that list in the OP, there are a number of other options.

-Meta

 

Hmm, I don't believe anyone has said otherwise, but alright.

 

Well said!