Is there any "fair" way to reapportion and do away with gerrymandering?

[Peremensoe]

@Little_Nemo

His system has people voting for candidates rather than parties.
…
A real party-based system would be where people vote for parties with the parties themselves choosing which candidates will represent the party.

That’s Closed List. Not the only way to do it. In Open List, a vote for a candidate identified with a party is a vote for both the candidate and the party.

@UDS

I think his system essentially assumes that if you vote for any Republican candidate, then you prefer all the other Republican candidates to any of the candidates who are not Republicans.
…
(You could come up with a variation on his system in which the ranking of the Republican candidates was decided not by the party, but by the number of votes each got. In fact, I think that was Max’s intention.)

Not only “could you” come up with Open List PR, it’s been done, and a handful of real bodies are elected with it, such as the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies and the Polish Sejm (each half of a bicameral legislature).

I believe voters in Brazil have the option of writing in only a party vote, which counts toward the proportional success of that party and effectively leaves the ranking of its list to the other voters who specify candidates.

[HurricaneDitka]

@septimus

That after all is the hallmark of gerrymandering — a district with a super-majority for the Party opposed to the gerrymander.

Not always. In Utah, Democrats cried bitterly that we’d gerrymandered the districts after the last census, and there’s certainly no super-majority Dem district here. The Dem-heavy areas got split fairly evenly between our four Republican-held seats, similar to what it sounds like happened in the 10 Northern California districts you looked at.

[septimus]

@HurricaneDitka

Not always. In Utah, Democrats cried bitterly that we’d gerrymandered the districts after the last census, and there’s certainly no super-majority Dem district here. The Dem-heavy areas got split fairly evenly between our four Republican-held seats, similar to what it sounds like happened in the 10 Northern California districts you looked at.

OK; your point is valid. However why do you jump to the conclusion that California’s Bay Area was gerrymandered? (Is it just the “Your side probably does it too” meme?) Looking at the map, the district shapes seem about as compact as one could hope for.

Instead, looking at the election results you can see that the entire Bay Area is overwhelmingly Democratic. While clicking around at Wikipedia I note that California seems to have taken strong steps to avoid gerrymandering. Wrong?

[MaxTheVool]

@HurricaneDitka

Not always. In Utah, Democrats cried bitterly that we’d gerrymandered the districts after the last census, and there’s certainly no super-majority Dem district here. The Dem-heavy areas got split fairly evenly between our four Republican-held seats, similar to what it sounds like happened in the 10 Northern California districts you looked at.

But that’s not evidence that there was no gerrymandering. If you’re in the majority, and you’re gerrymandering, you don’t need to give the opposition any districts at all. If you’re a 60-40 majority overall, just make all 60-40 districts. It’s when it’s 50-50 or you’re in the minority that you need to start getting creative, in which case you want to end up with a few 99-1 districts for your opponents and a bunch of 55-45 districts for you.

(Not saying that’s what happened in Utah, necessarily.)

[Little_Nemo]

@MaxTheVool

It’s when it’s 50-50 or you’re in the minority that you need to start getting creative, in which case you want to end up with a few 99-1 districts for your opponents and a bunch of 55-45 districts for you.

To use the numbers from my earlier example, assume you have three million voters - 1,650,000 (55%) Democrats and 1,350,000 (45%) Republicans - being divided up into ten districts of 300,000 apiece. And you’re a Republican in charge of the division.

District 1: 300,000 Democrats
District 2: 300,000 Democrats
District 3: 168,750 Republicans and 131,250 Democrats
District 4: 168,750 Republicans and 131,250 Democrats
District 5: 168,750 Republicans and 131,250 Democrats
District 6: 168,750 Republicans and 131,250 Democrats
District 7: 168,750 Republicans and 131,250 Democrats
District 8: 168,750 Republicans and 131,250 Democrats
District 9: 168,750 Republicans and 131,250 Democrats
District 10: 168,750 Republicans and 131,250 Democrats

A region that is 45% Republican is going to elect 80% Republican candidates to office.

On the other hand, here’s how a Democrat might do the division:

District 1: 165,000 Democrats and 135,000 Republicans
District 2: 165,000 Democrats and 135,000 Republicans
District 3: 165,000 Democrats and 135,000 Republicans
District 4: 165,000 Democrats and 135,000 Republicans
District 5: 165,000 Democrats and 135,000 Republicans
District 6: 165,000 Democrats and 135,000 Republicans
District 7: 165,000 Democrats and 135,000 Republicans
District 8: 165,000 Democrats and 135,000 Republicans
District 9: 165,000 Democrats and 135,000 Republicans
District 10: 165,000 Democrats and 135,000 Republicans

Now a region that’s 45% Republican is going to elect 100% Democratic candidates to office.

[HurricaneDitka]

@septimus

… why do you jump to the conclusion that California’s Bay Area was gerrymandered?

Just various stuff I read about it, like this. It’s not really something that gets me fired up, and I’m not really going to spend all day trying to convince skeptics that it was gerrymandering. It’s not something I consider myself well-informed enough to argue persuasively about, but my layman’s understanding of the process was that it was very successfully manipulated by Democrats to give themselves favorable maps.

[E-DUB]

It strikes me that my vote, as a resident of a gerrymandered district, even one gerrymandered to favor my party,is not as significant as that of a resident of a “swing district”. Seems to me that there might be a basis for a lawsuit there.

[HurricaneDitka]

@E-DUB

It strikes me that my vote, as a resident of a gerrymandered district, even one gerrymandered to favor my party,is not as significant as that of a resident of a “swing district”. Seems to me that there might be a basis for a lawsuit there.

I don’t think there’s any Constitutional guarantee that your vote has to be significant as someone living elsewhere. If it were, there’d be endless lawsuits: populous states vs small states for Senate, swing state voters vs non-swing-state voters, people in districts in California that only had two people of the same party on the general election ballot, etc.

[septimus]

@HurricaneDitka

Just various stuff I read about it, like this. It’s not really something that gets me fired up, and I’m not really going to spend all day trying to convince skeptics that it was gerrymandering. It’s not something I consider myself well-informed enough to argue persuasively about, but my layman’s understanding of the process was that it was very successfully manipulated by Democrats to give themselves favorable maps.

Interesting. Let me give my take on that article.
First and foremost, it alleges that Californian Democrats were actively seeking to gerrymander. I can’t blame them — it’s the American way. Moreover Republicans are happy to argue that Republican authorities are remiss if they don’t pursue gerrymandering — it’s like failing in a fiduciary duty!

Then it goes on to argue that the GOP foiled most of the gerrymandering attempts. It gives no specific examples.

Commissioners declined to discuss the details of specific districts, citing ongoing litigation. But several said in interviews that while they were aware of some attempts to mislead them, they felt they had defused the most egregious attempts.

I don’t see that there is significant gerrymandering in the Bay Area I looked at. As I linked upthread, the Districts are remarkably compact, unlike the salamander-shaped Congressional District which links together various GOP-friendly suburbs in the Philadelphia area. We have politically aware Dopers form Bay Area — I hope one of them can comment.

This leaves the question: If the present districting is “fair” why did Demos pick up so many seats? I hypothesize that might be a symptom of Demo incompetence: in 2000 they let the GOP gerrymander under their noses!

Or the answer could be much simpler: Democratic vote portion did increase between 2000 and 2010 and small-looking gains can lead to big gains just due to obvious non-linearities. Cf., e.g. Little Nemo’s comments.

[HurricaneDitka]

@septimus

Interesting. Let me give my take on that article.
First and foremost, it alleges that Californian Democrats were actively seeking to gerrymander. I can’t blame them — it’s the American way. Moreover Republicans are happy to argue that Republican authorities are remiss if they don’t pursue gerrymandering — it’s like failing in a fiduciary duty!

Then it goes on to argue that the GOP foiled most of the gerrymandering attempts. It gives no specific examples.
I don’t see that there is significant gerrymandering in the Bay Area I looked at. As I linked upthread, the Districts are remarkably compact, unlike the salamander-shaped Congressional District which links together various GOP-friendly suburbs in the Philadelphia area. We have politically aware Dopers form Bay Area — I hope one of them can comment.

This leaves the question: If the present districting is “fair” why did Demos pick up so many seats? I hypothesize that might be a symptom of Demo incompetence: in 2000 they let the GOP gerrymander under their noses!

Or the answer could be much simpler: Democratic vote portion did increase between 2000 and 2010 and small-looking gains can lead to big gains just due to obvious non-linearities. Cf., e.g. Little Nemo’s comments.

I appreciate your thoughts and am happy to hear alternate theories. I recognize that at least a portion of what I’ve previously read on the subject was just typical partisan bickering.

I ran some numbers (from Wikipedia, if that counts), and compared to other large states, California’s congressional representation more closely matches the vote % than New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, but is worse than Texas, Florida, and (surprisingly - to me at least) Illinois.

I agree with your point about gerrymandering being expected, even considered good politics by some. Both parties do it when they can, and complain when they get beat at it.

One point of clarification, I believe the entity that supposedly foiled the most egregious gerrymandering attempts was the redistricting commission (a bi- or non-partisan entity), not the GOP.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@septimus

I think an individual state could do this, if it so chose, under existing law. Or is there an Amendment or Federal Law which dictates dividing a state into districts?

The constitution only says states must have a republican form of government (i.e. a system where representatives are chosen by the people).

Saint Cad said above that 2 U.S. Code § 2c demands districts but this is only true for choosing congresscritters at the federal level. Presumably a state could do it different for their own legislatures. That they do it the same is largely because making a separate system would just confuse matters.

Nebraska has a unicameral legislature and members are called “senators” but not sure how they are elected or know any other specifics.

[I_Love_Me_Vol.I]

@Crybaby_Boobie

What about uncapping the 435 congressperson limit and instead just adding districts for every new 600k people (or whatever the smallest state pop is)? That would certainly make states like PA more representative of the voter pop.

But then:

“We’re going to need a bigger boat (congressional chamber).”

[septimus]

Although almost irrelevant to this thread, apportionment paradoxes may be very interesting if you’ve never read about them before.

The Wikipedia article presents real-world examples of these paradoxes arising in allocating Congressional seats to states.

The Alabama paradox was discovered in 1880 when census calculations found that if the total number of seats in the House of Representatives were hypothetically increased, this would decrease Alabama’s seats from 8 to 7. An actual impact was observed in 1900, when Virginia lost a seat to Maine, even though Virginia’s population was growing more rapidly: this is an example of the population paradox. In 1907, when Oklahoma became a state, New York lost a seat to Maine, thus the name “the new state paradox.”

It also gives simple small-number examples. If states Alabama, B and C have respective 1 million, 3 million, 3 million populations and the House is to have 10 seats, the only logical allocation is 2-4-4. Increase the House size to 11 seats and a “logical” way to apportion (and the way dictated by the Hamilton Plan Congress adopted in 1852) would be 1-5-5. Alabama loses a seat when the House size increases!

I wrote that these paradoxes are only almost irrelevant. They do illustrate how fraught with difficulty these allocations are. Elegant fairer systems do exist based on preference and proportion. With evidence staring us in the face that the present system leads to polarization and gridlock, it really is time to think seriously about change.

[Saint_Cad]

I think an interesting system would be that for a state with N representatives, a party’s primary selects N candidates - so with 5 parties and 7 representatives you can have as many as 35 on the general ballot. Come general election, the top N candidates get elected.

[MaxTheVool]

@Saint_Cad

I think an interesting system would be that for a state with N representatives, a party’s primary selects N candidates - so with 5 parties and 7 representatives you can have as many as 35 on the general ballot. Come general election, the top N candidates get elected.

How many votes does each person get? Just one? If so, that’s going to be a disaster of voting paradoxes.

[Clothahump]

@Lord_Feldon

I think you think zip codes are larger than they are. Or you want a lot more members of Congress if you want some to represent a partial zip code (which I kind of doubt). There would be dozens and dozens of residential zip codes even in a densely-populated district, so they’d just have the same fight over where to assign which ones.

The zip codes can be divided into 435 areas. The caveat would be that they would have to be adjacent, and that all zip codes allocated to a district except 1 (possibly 2) have to be intact.

That would eliminate crap like this: go to DistrictViewer. Zoom in on the Houston area and look at the 2nd, 18th and 18th districts. That is gerrymandering to a T. There is no way that the people in those districts share common interests or needs except at a very big picture level.

[Saint_Cad]

@MaxTheVool

How many votes does each person get? Just one? If so, that’s going to be a disaster of voting paradoxes.

Which voting paradoxes?

[UDS]

Well, a moment’s thought will show that in the system you suggest, it’s not necessarily in the interests of the party to run 7 candidates if not required to.

Suppose the party has enough votes to get, on a good day with a following wind, 2 of the 7 seats - say, 25% support. If they run 7 candidates and their support is divided more or less evenly, each of the candidates will get about 3.5% of the total vote, and they will get no seats. Whereas if they run just 2 candidates, they have an excellent chance of getting two seats.

OK. If they are required to run 7 candidates, their best strategy is to run 2 attractive candidates plus 5 nonentities who do not campaign and who have surnames beginning with Z. Thus the parties will be in competition to run mostly dud candidates, and the party which runs the duddest will be rewarded.

Suppose you improve the system, and say that parties can run as few or as many candidates as they wish. The hypothetical party we are discussing here will run 2 candidates. But if one of their candidates is really, really good, he may get, say 20% of the vote, leaving only 5% for the other candidate, who thus fails to get a seat. Thus the party is penalised electorally for running a really good candidate; they would do better to run two moderately good candidates, which of course is what they will do. And the legislature will be denied the services of the outstandingly good candidate.

In a multi-seat district, voters need to be able to express views as to how all the seats get filled. Otherwise you introduce distortions like this.

[septimus]

@UDS

Well, a moment’s thought will show that in the system you suggest, it’s not necessarily in the interests of the party to run 7 candidates if not required to.

I don’t know which suggestion you’re referring to, but the difficulties you mention are avoided by the use of party lists. (There are also fair ways to combine party- and individual-voting, but I don’t if such cumbersome systems are in real-world use.)

[UDS]

@septimus

I don’t know which suggestion you’re referring to . . .

St Cad’s suggestion in post #94, which is for multi-seat constituencies, each party to nominate as many candidates as there are seats to fill, each voter to have one vote, no party lists, as many candidates with the highest numbers of votes as will fill the seats to be elected.