How to stop gerrymandering?

Factual Questions
1

The Quebec elections board announced today that they would be merging six electoral districts in western Montreal into three. All six are in areas of the province that are predominantly federalist - that is, the resident there are massively opposed to possible Quebec secession.

It is pretty obvious to the people in those areas being merged that this is a pretty blatant attempt to reduce the electoral strength of the main federalist party in Quebec, a party that is currently leading in the polls with an election next year.

Question: Can you think of any other blatant gerrymandering examples recently? And what was done by those hurt by the new electoral districts to prevent it?

2

As shown by this Washington Post article, gerrymandering is going through a renaissance in your neighbor to south. A public outcry followed up with lawsuits will probably get things set to right again within a few years.

3

I’m not sure how Canada apportions its districts, but in the U.S. Congressional districts are reapportioned through a bloodletting that takes every 10 years after the Census. It is just beginning now. Congressional districts are supposed to all have the same population (or as close as they possibly can). The Voting Rights Act also requires that no particular ethnic group has no chance of getting a representative.
It’s a nasty issue. Here in California, the Democrats control the State Legislature and the Governor is a Democrat and so the Republicans out here are very likely to get screwed. There will be one new Congressional district here and don’t expect it to be drawn so a Republican could win it.

4

The simplest way to stop gerrymandering would be to let a computer do it, more specifically, this is a problem well suited to Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Letting those whose livelihoods depend on the shape of the districts control the process is perhaps the best (worst?) example of letting he foxes guard the henhouse known to man.

It would be no great feat to design a script in ArcView or a similar program to make compact, fair districts based soley on population density. Heck, you could probably throw race in as a factor without too much trouble.

Best of all, in a poetic sense for the OP, the computer technology for this approach originated not in the US, but Canada.

5

In my state we are in the middle of our post-census unseemly legislative brawl.

Here, a supposedly nonpartisan legislative agency comes up with a proposed computer generated re-map of the Congressional and State Legislative districts. The State Legislature can either accept or reject the first plan, and the second plan if the first plan is rejected, but cannot change the plan. If the first and second plans are both rejected then the agency comes up with a third plan which the legislature can play games with. The legislature is dominated by a combination of “I love Jesus and anyone who doesn’t should find somewhere else to live” Republicans and classic, that is to say just plain cheap, Republicans. The first plan was dead on arrival for the ostensible reason that the district populations varied by about 500. The real reason was that it made some Republican Congressmen and State Legislators chose between moving to a new district or running against each other.

The second plan is only marginally better in terms of population variance but has the redeeming value of throwing a Democrat Congressman into a district dominated by Republicans and splitting the two or three metropolitan areas we have into different Congressional districts, thus dilution the Demo’s urban advantage. This plan will probably be accepted.

In the end the whole thing is simply a matter of politics, as are a lot of things. It may not be fair, but fair is a question of whose interests are advanced. If you don’t like it, concentrate on turning out the best candidates and turning out the vote for the State Legislative elections.

6

JDL, which districts are you referring to?

The DGE proposal for Montreal is at: (PDF format)

http://www.dgeq.qc.ca/anglais/cre/pdf/rapport14juin.an.pdf

The 1992 boundaries (which have been used for the 94 and 98 Quebec elections) now have deviations from the quota rangin from -24 (Hochelaga-Maissoneuve) to +45 (Nelligan). The new map brings them all into within about +15 of the quota. (The new Nelligan is within 2 percent of the quota.)

It’s true that the east end seems to be closer to the quota than the west end, however that’s the least of the problems in Montreal. The main problem is that ALL of the Island of Montreal ridings proposed (for that matter, most of Laval, too) is above quota. In other words, the island gets fewer ridings than exactly warranted by population. I think the overall effect of some of the changes that have been proposed is to “transfer” some seats from the island to Laval, which has been sprawling like crazy in the past decade.

The Quebec electoral district process is actually one of the more transparent ones in Canada; the DGE does pretty good work… well, they DO, if they’ve fixed that nasty scrutineering problem from the 1995 referendum.

Public hearings on the DGE proposal are coming up this summer. If that fails, it’s time to go to court and argue s.3 of the Charter. It’s been done before:

Re Sask. Electorl Boundaries (SCC) 1991

The electoral map in PEI got thrown out in the mid-90s based on this precedent. I couldn’t find a web source for this case. I don’t know if the variations and anomolies in the Quebec proposed map are egregious enough to warrant court intervention… maybe Howard Galganov, Guy Bertrand, or some of the west island mayors have crunched the case law on this issue? :slight_smile:

As a final caveat, be careful what you wish for. Insisting on strict adherence to an electoral quota in Quebec might gain a few seats for the federalist island of Montreal, but it would also make the PQ more likely to hold or gain seats in remote regions like the far north, the North Shore, and Gaspé/Iles-de-la-Madeleine regions, where the negative deviation from the quota makes the anglophone, allophone and amerindien minorities more electorally powerful than they would be under larger, more equal, but more francophone ridings.

7

I forgot to add that the NWT’s territorial electoral districts were also rules unconstitutional after a court action in 1999 by Yellowknife residents.

Here’s an excerpt. (Couldn’t find the full judgment)

http://www.yellowknife.com/slaven/judgsumm.htm

8

Another example: As of when I left two years ago, the campus of Villanova University was divided amongst four different voting districts, lest the students form a voting block on certain issues. The big one there was zoning regulations: The regs in place at the time guaranteed that a significant portion of the students would have to be housed illegally.

Don’t ask me how to beat it, though… None of the students was able to figure that out.

9

What is the rule in the US for variance of populations between districts. I know that the courts have ruled that it must be as equal as possible, but is there a number over under which the electoral board people are not allowed to go?

P.S. I found a very good site that explains the role of the courts in various countries on this matter. http://www.aceproject.org/main/english/bd/bdb06.htm

10

Ahhh… students voting rights. Always a bit of a problem, especially if there is a residency rule for voting. Local governmentssee it as a case of protecting themselves from the whims of students, (who tend to be politically righteous and naive), and from the fact that on some places the students would actually OUTNUMBER the locals. So yeah, they break up districts in student areas for these exact reasons.

As long as the people who benefit from gerrymandering are the ones who set up the districts, the practice will continue.

11

The California State Constitution says in Article 21, Section 1, Paragraph (b)

This leads me to believe that it’s up to the courts to decide. It’s hard to come up with a reliable figure as the census figures are out of date before they are released and the population of any district will fluctuate during a 10-year period.

12

Drawing election districts is more art than science. Humans must consciously put the boundaries between/around areas of common interest/neighborhoods/regions.

Certain federal guidelines, however, have led to oddities in the redistricting just completed for the Alaska legislature. The southeast panhandle is sparsely populated mainly by Natives. The Voting Rights Act requires that the state avoid diminishing native representation, despite population losses in the panhandle. So the district was broadened to include communities hundreds of miles away. The senate district for that area would now extend up into a heavily-populated neighborhood of Anchorage.

That’s a helluva long way for a politican to travel to get elected. As this visual aid shows, it would be like living in Savannah, GA and voting for a state senator who lives in Kansas City, MO (albeit with no major cities in between).

Oh, and Republicans are upset because 20 incumbents will have to run against a colleague next year - while no Democrats will (of course, there are twice as many GOP legislators). Some say, however, that the Republican-controlled redistricting 10 years ago split up neighborhoods, allowing GOPers who live practically next door to run in different districts. The new plan draws the lines around common areas. Now Republicans are furious that they’ll have to run against their neighboring incumbent! It’s dienfranchisement, I tells ya! :wink: