1 hour ago, Dougal said:

A little perspective from 300 miles away.  The Maryland Legislature has produced a map that should eliminate the last Republican congressman.  (Statistically there could be two or three.)  The Democrats are high-fiving each other and totally unappologetic.   🙂

It does go both ways.  At some point the Feds need to get involved and make it fair for everyone.   

3 hours ago, Dougal said:

A little perspective from 300 miles away.  The Maryland Legislature has produced a map that should eliminate the last Republican congressman.  (Statistically there could be two or three.)  The Democrats are high-fiving each other and totally unappologetic.   🙂

 

1 hour ago, Cleburger said:

It does go both ways.  At some point the Feds need to get involved and make it fair for everyone.   

As long as California maintains its independent districting commission and therefore is not gerrymandered, the few D states that effectively do it (Maryland, Illinois, Oregon) don’t come anywhere close to making up for the many large R states that are wildly gerrymandered (OH, WI, TX, etc). The net effect is overwhelmingly R. 
 

Thanks John Roberts Supreme Court! 

^to both sides this situation when GOP members in congress are holding up HR1 and the John Lewis voting rights act and other watered down versions of it to appease “moderates” is a joke. One side does this much more than the other, and one side is actually trying to prevent it immediately going forward. 

also most of the states that have independent commissions that aren’t messed with are blue. This independent commission is being circumvented by the Gym Jordan fan club.

come on.

Edited December 9, 20213 yr by Clefan14

2 hours ago, Boomerang_Brian said:

 

As long as California maintains its independent districting commission and therefore is not gerrymandered, the few D states that effectively do it (Maryland, Illinois, Oregon) don’t come anywhere close to making up for the many large R states that are wildly gerrymandered (OH, WI, TX, etc). The net effect is overwhelmingly R. 
 

Thanks John Roberts Supreme Court! 

California voters chose the independent commission. 

 

However, before people get crazy about the gerrymander let's put things into a bit of a perspective here. 

Are the new maps better than the prior 10 years. I think that would be a true. There is no longer a snake like district along the lake. Other districts are a bit more straighforward. This is an improvement.

 

Also, keep in mind that there are a number of Democrats who are strongly supportive of their districts and protective of territory. This makes it difficult to break up majority/minority districts and create a map that would allow dems to be more competitive statewide in other districts. By creating a couple of districts that are +50 D it allows those politicians to have a very safe path toward election. These D's have a lot of pushback on breaking up their districts to allow for more competitive seats statewide. Even though the GOP controls the process, there is Dem input into it and part of the pushback that has led to the districts does come from these strong D districts. 

51 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

Even though the GOP controls the process, there is Dem input into it and part of the pushback that has led to the districts does come from these strong D districts. 

Where was the Democratic input in this districting process?

12 hours ago, Luke_S said:

Where was the Democratic input in this districting process?

There was input and a lot of pushback coming from many of the majority-minority districts. Part of the biggest challenge to achieve some of the desired results of making it more even to the actual electorate involved breaking up the majority-minority districts. While those districts would still have leaned strong D, they would lean less D than they do currently, and more concerning to the incumbants of those districts was that, while strong D, they may no longer be majority-minority or barely majority-minority. So you in these cases you have really strong pushback from the minority community that even though the district is a heavy solid D district, it is split 50% minority/50% white and therefore, you no longer guarantee a minority candidate is elected.

 

This is more heavily exacerbated on the state house side of things, but certainly comes into play during the Federal redistricting too. 

15 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

There was input and a lot of pushback coming from many of the majority-minority districts. Part of the biggest challenge to achieve some of the desired results of making it more even to the actual electorate involved breaking up the majority-minority districts. While those districts would still have leaned strong D, they would lean less D than they do currently, and more concerning to the incumbants of those districts was that, while strong D, they may no longer be majority-minority or barely majority-minority. So you in these cases you have really strong pushback from the minority community that even though the district is a heavy solid D district, it is split 50% minority/50% white and therefore, you no longer guarantee a minority candidate is elected.

 

This is more heavily exacerbated on the state house side of things, but certainly comes into play during the Federal redistricting too. 

Could you link an article where you are seeing this, would love to read more about it. 

19 hours ago, Dougal said:

A little perspective from 300 miles away.  The Maryland Legislature has produced a map that should eliminate the last Republican congressman.  (Statistically there could be two or three.)  The Democrats are high-fiving each other and totally unappologetic.   🙂

 

Maryland is an outlier though, along with Illinois. 

 

And to be clear, a truly fair map in Maryland has two Republican seats max. So Dems are getting +2. Republicans are getting +5 just for their efforts in Ohio alone.

1 minute ago, Luke_S said:

Could you link an article where you are seeing this, would love to read more about it. 

 

He can't, because it is a lie. Like about 75% of things he posts.

14 minutes ago, Luke_S said:

Could you link an article where you are seeing this, would love to read more about it. 

 

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/new-maps-spark-debate-over-majority-minority-districts

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/09/it-time-rethink-hyper-minority-districts/620118/

 

Here is an article that describes the challenges faced nationwide. This is obviously concerning detroit but it is going on in most states. In many cases it really is not reported or covered because it involves a much more in the weeds debates that do not necessarily garner headlines because it is more the saussage making type story that will come out years after the fact if at all. - While this involves Detroit, the same considerations are going on in Ohio, even if @DEPACincy may try and say otherwise. As posted here a week or two ago by someone there was a draw your own redistricting map and the biggest challenge was creating one that respected some of the majoity-minority districts. 

 

Think of it from a practical point - If you have a district that is a +50 or higher D, as an incumbant you do not have to heavily campaign and you have a pretty good gig going.  Even if your party is in the minority in your state, do you (in your own self interest) want to give that up to make your district much more competitive? So from that legislators POV you have them working in their own self-interest (which is difficult to prove but it is there).  Secondly, these seats were traditionally created as carve outs to allow African American's representation in Congress when at the time you could not get white people to vote for a black person for office. This was the way to help change that and was part of the VRA act. Even though those rules do not necessarily apply anymore, and American views on race have changed considerably, there is stil a preception that a majority black area should have a black representative. 

 

A second practical point. While there may be a lot of partisan screaming going on to the media, generally, the majority of people in office generally get along even if they are members of the opposing party. In general, on the majority of issues, they need to build consensus to get things done and get some of their key initiatives included in bills. Much of this does not get media attention because it is boring. These legislators, even from different parties are known and they have established relationships with key people from both parties. There is a bit of a deference given to those lawmakers that you dont touch the general makeup of their district and such changes involve more nibbling around the corners of their district. If it means sacrificing another D in the process, privately, they are ok with that. 

 

 

@Brutus_buckeyeOkay, but reporting on the actual process in Ohio show that Cupp and Hoffman drew these maps and didn't even involve the 3 other Republicans in the process. So having a hard time believing Democrats had any say whatsoever.

Lol at blaming Democrats for the new district maps. The map is "better" despite solidifying more R district?

 

I suppose that makes sense if you ignore the actual map proposed by Democrats that was far more representative of the current population.

1 hour ago, Luke_S said:

@Brutus_buckeyeOkay, but reporting on the actual process in Ohio show that Cupp and Hoffman drew these maps and didn't even involve the 3 other Republicans in the process. So having a hard time believing Democrats had any say whatsoever.

 

40 minutes ago, Mendo said:

Lol at blaming Democrats for the new district maps. The map is "better" despite solidifying more R district?

 

I suppose that makes sense if you ignore the actual map proposed by Democrats that was far more representative of the current population.

Influence and direct power are two different things. The proposed map by the Democrats was what they would hope for in the ideal world. Realistically, that was never going to happen. It was out there for the public for posturing purposes and to score political points, but that was not part of the inside game that was being played. .

 

Behind the scenes, there are Dems who hold a lot of sway in the matter. For example, (and I know she is not running) a candidate like Brigid Kelly would be able to influence republicans to keep her seat safe or safer at the expense of other democrats. There are democrats that are more liked than others and  those democrats can wield a lot of influence over how their district turns out. 

It is not about R v D at this point. That part was decided a long time ago. The D's lost. It is about the D's in self survival mode working at preserving their own power and influence at the expense of other members of their party. So yes, they have influence

lol

To be perfectly honest, and we have been through this before, I'm not sure how you could redraw the 11th Congressional district to maintain a "minority majority" and not be close to the 80% Democratic results we saw last year.

1 hour ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

While this involves Detroit, the same considerations are going on in Ohio, even if @DEPACincy may try and say otherwise.

 

The GOP leaders gave depositions that they controlled the process and did not consider racial demographics in their decision making. The Dems on the commission, and the statewide Republicans, both gave depositions saying that they did not contribute to the drawing of the maps.

 

So yes, either you are lying, or you are misinformed.

21 hours ago, Dougal said:

A little perspective from 300 miles away.  The Maryland Legislature has produced a map that should eliminate the last Republican congressman.  (Statistically there could be two or three.)  The Democrats are high-fiving each other and totally unappologetic.   🙂

 

Under Maryland law, is that kosher?  The issue in Ohio was that the map-drawing process was recently changed with an express goal of eliminating the partisan gerrymandering. 

 

This is why I think we should have a national standard for guidance on how districts should be drawn, but *regulation* causes panic attacks in some parts which will make it difficult/unlikely.

16 hours ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

There is no longer a snake like district along the lake.

Right, now Elyria is in the same district with Ft. Loramie, practically on the Indiana border. 

 

Fail to understand why a snake-away-from-the-lake is better.

58 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

That part was decided a long time ago. The D's lost. It is about the D's in self survival mode working at preserving their own power and influence at the expense of other members of their party. So yes, they have influence

 

Again, Lol at blaming Democrats for the ridiculous new map. Make up a strawman conspiracy theory and use it justify despicable behavior.

 

Last I checked, the people of Ohio voted to end gerrymandering. If "the D's lost" means Republicans can ignore the overwhelming majority of Ohioans, well, I don't know what to tell you.

41 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

 

The GOP leaders gave depositions that they controlled the process and did not consider racial demographics in their decision making. The Dems on the commission, and the statewide Republicans, both gave depositions saying that they did not contribute to the drawing of the maps.

 

So yes, either you are lying, or you are misinformed.

lol

2 hours ago, Foraker said:

 

Under Maryland law, is that kosher?  The issue in Ohio was that the map-drawing process was recently changed with an express goal of eliminating the partisan gerrymandering. 

 

This is why I think we should have a national standard for guidance on how districts should be drawn, but *regulation* causes panic attacks in some parts which will make it difficult/unlikely.

Yes, perfectly legal.  Today the governor vetoed it; but the Democrats have a supermajority in the legislature, so they will pass it over the veto.

18 minutes ago, Dougal said:

Yes, perfectly legal.  Today the governor vetoed it; but the Democrats have a supermajority in the legislature, so they will pass it over the veto.

 

FYI, Maryland Dems chose not to send the more extreme gerrymander to Hogan. Instead, they adopted a map that keeps the current 7-1 make up.

 

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-2022-maps/maryland/draft_concept_2/

The fact that we’re comparing the MD instance to Ohio is the classic GOP both sides argument that is trash. Imagine the other side nationally having legislation to fix the problem and you shut it down various times, then you complain about it rarely working against you Bc you know it’s the only way you can win back the house and keep minority rule. Texas districts are insane as well, the lunatic Crenshaw wouldn’t be unemployed if it wasn’t for gerrymandering.

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1468986740618797070?t=pR-pQDkqVxTVml3jAVV7Qg&s=19

The problem Democrats face is a basic geographical one. It's harder for them to gerrymander because they need to slice up urban centers like a pizza to make the numbers work. Urban centers are often 70, 80, 90+ percent Democrat voters, while surrounding burbs may lean just slightly towards Republicans. Hence why there are often very blue districts in cities, surrounded by a handful of slightly red districts in suburban to rural area. Concise, geographically sensible districts are typically going to benefit Republicans. Districts are rarely ever going to align with the overall statewide party affiliation numbers, unless you gerrymander them to do so. There isn't an even distribution of political affiliated people throughout the state.

18 hours ago, DEPACincy said:

 

FYI, Maryland Dems chose not to send the more extreme gerrymander to Hogan. Instead, they adopted a map that keeps the current 7-1 make up.

 

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-2022-maps/maryland/draft_concept_2/

 

So disappointing.  No guts, no air medal.

43 minutes ago, Ram23 said:

The problem Democrats face is a basic geographical one. It's harder for them to gerrymander because they need to slice up urban centers like a pizza to make the numbers work. Urban centers are often 70, 80, 90+ percent Democrat voters, while surrounding burbs may lean just slightly towards Republicans. Hence why there are often very blue districts in cities, surrounded by a handful of slightly red districts in suburban to rural area. Concise, geographically sensible districts are typically going to benefit Republicans. Districts are rarely ever going to align with the overall statewide party affiliation numbers, unless you gerrymander them to do so. There isn't an even distribution of political affiliated people throughout the state.

 

A computer can do it.

27 minutes ago, Ram23 said:

 Concise, geographically sensible districts are typically going to benefit Republicans. Districts are rarely ever going to align with the overall statewide party affiliation numbers, unless you gerrymander them to do so. There isn't an even distribution of political affiliated people throughout the state.

 

It's like you didn't even click the link directly above your post. 

 

If "concise, geographically sensible districts" benefit Republicans, how come they never draw them in states they control? How come the court-ordered compact map in Pennsylvania took the state from 13R-5D to 9R-9D?

33 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

 

It's like you didn't even click the link directly above your post. 

 

If "concise, geographically sensible districts" benefit Republicans, how come they never draw them in states they control? How come the court-ordered compact map in Pennsylvania took the state from 13R-5D to 9R-9D?

From 538, arguing two points you have 'argued' against:

 

"Our interactive estimates that if Democrats controlled the redistricting process in every state, they could draw 263 “usually Democratic” seats and limit the GOP to 145 “usually Republican” seats. But that’s less lopsided than the 275 to 139 advantage in “usually safe” seats that the Republicans would enjoy under their fantasy scenario. Why? The reasons are rooted in several fundamental geographic and legal realities.

 

First, more than in past decades, Democratic voters are inefficiently clustered in big cities and college towns. In 2012 and 2016, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton carried the popular vote while winning just 22 percent and 16 percent of America’s counties, respectively. That means that in many states, it’s easier for Republicans to pack Democratic voters into a few lopsided districts than vice versa — a natural geographic advantage for the GOP.

 

Second, the Voting Rights Act limits the extent to which Democrats can spread their voters across many districts, because it provides safeguards against diluting majority-minority districts. For example, if the Voting Rights Act didn’t exist, Illinois Democrats could theoretically “unpack” Chicago’s three heavily African-American districts and spread out their overwhelmingly Democratic voters to obliterate the state’s GOP-leaning districts. Instead, the current Democratic gerrymander in Illinois has produced a modest 11-7 Democratic edge in congressional seats."

 

Article https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hating-gerrymandering-is-easy-fixing-it-is-harder/

1 hour ago, Ram23 said:

 Concise, geographically sensible districts are typically going to benefit Republicans. 

How is this either concise, or geographically sensible?   It also includes an ultra liberal college town.  

 

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Ethan said:

From 538, arguing two points you have 'argued' against:

 

"Our interactive estimates that if Democrats controlled the redistricting process in every state, they could draw 263 “usually Democratic” seats and limit the GOP to 145 “usually Republican” seats. But that’s less lopsided than the 275 to 139 advantage in “usually safe” seats that the Republicans would enjoy under their fantasy scenario. Why? The reasons are rooted in several fundamental geographic and legal realities.

 

First, more than in past decades, Democratic voters are inefficiently clustered in big cities and college towns. In 2012 and 2016, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton carried the popular vote while winning just 22 percent and 16 percent of America’s counties, respectively. That means that in many states, it’s easier for Republicans to pack Democratic voters into a few lopsided districts than vice versa — a natural geographic advantage for the GOP.

 

Second, the Voting Rights Act limits the extent to which Democrats can spread their voters across many districts, because it provides safeguards against diluting majority-minority districts. For example, if the Voting Rights Act didn’t exist, Illinois Democrats could theoretically “unpack” Chicago’s three heavily African-American districts and spread out their overwhelmingly Democratic voters to obliterate the state’s GOP-leaning districts. Instead, the current Democratic gerrymander in Illinois has produced a modest 11-7 Democratic edge in congressional seats."

 

Article https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hating-gerrymandering-is-easy-fixing-it-is-harder/

 

In what way have I argued against any of that? I think we might have a miscommunication here.

3 hours ago, GCrites80s said:

 

A computer can do it.

 

I'd be curious to see what sort of map an AI would draw if you simply eliminated controversial topics as inputs. No income, racial, or political data as inputs. Just population and a goal of the most geographically concise maps possible. My gut instinct tells me that it would favor Republicans for the reasons mentioned above. And it would probably violate the Voting Rights Act, which is ironically amusing.

 

 

6 minutes ago, Ram23 said:

 

I'd be curious to see what sort of map an AI would draw if you simply eliminated controversial topics as inputs. No income, racial, or political data as inputs. Just population and a goal of the most geographically concise maps possible. My gut instinct tells me that it would favor Republicans for the reasons mentioned above. And it would probably violate the Voting Rights Act, which is ironically amusing.

 

 

See the article I posted a few comments above. It does exactly that, and, yes, that is one of the problems they discuss with the approach. 

 

14 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

 

In what way have I argued against any of that? I think we might have a miscommunication here.

 

You disagreed with @Brutus_buckeyeand @Ram23who made more or less exactly these points.  

17 minutes ago, Ram23 said:

 

I'd be curious to see what sort of map an AI would draw if you simply eliminated controversial topics as inputs. No income, racial, or political data as inputs. Just population and a goal of the most geographically concise maps possible. My gut instinct tells me that it would favor Republicans for the reasons mentioned above. And it would probably violate the Voting Rights Act, which is ironically amusing.

 

 

 

The 21st/11th majority minority district didn't happen because of the VRA.   It happened because W. O. Walker brokered a deal between Cleveland area black Democrats (primarily the Stokes brothers) and the Ohio GOP.   To benefit both, at the expense of the Democratic Party as a whole.  Which was taking black voters for granted, so perhaps deserved it.

5 hours ago, Ram23 said:

The problem Democrats face is a basic geographical one. It's harder for them to gerrymander because they need to slice up urban centers like a pizza to make the numbers work. Urban centers are often 70, 80, 90+ percent Democrat voters, while surrounding burbs may lean just slightly towards Republicans. Hence why there are often very blue districts in cities, surrounded by a handful of slightly red districts in suburban to rural area. Concise, geographically sensible districts are typically going to benefit Republicans. Districts are rarely ever going to align with the overall statewide party affiliation numbers, unless you gerrymander them to do so. There isn't an even distribution of political affiliated people throughout the state.

 

In Cuyahoga County,  the inner ring suburbs usually lean Democratic, though that can depend on the candidates (Cuyahoga Heights in 2016, for example).   Therefore, keeping the 11th black-majority is virtually impossible without hitting 70-80% Democratic.

3 hours ago, Cleburger said:

How is this either concise, or geographically sensible?   It also includes an ultra liberal college town.  

 

 

 

 

The thing that gets lost in much of the conversation is the districts also need to keep a population balance. you cant have one district with 850k voters and another in ohio with 650k voters. Taking the proposed district and shifting Marysville and Urbana out of it and adding in Kenton, Findlay and Upper Sandusky could create population issues in other areas because of where the population actually lives in Ohio. 

On 12/10/2021 at 3:07 PM, Ethan said:

 

 

You disagreed with @Brutus_buckeyeand @Ram23who made more or less exactly these points.  

 

I'm still confused. You are going to have to explain it to me like I'm five because I don't see where they made any of the points in the 538 article.

 

They argued that compact districts would naturally favor Republicans. That's not true, and the 538 article actually confirms that. Dem voters are densely concentrated, but that's exactly why it is easy for the GOP to gerrymander by cracking them into many districts. See Hamilton County as an example. A compact district would be blue but they drew three ridiculous districts instead to dilute the population.

 

The other thing they argued is that the VRA was considered when drawing Ohio's districts and that hurt Dems too. That is also not true. The people that drew the maps testified under oath that racial demographics were not considered at all. Also, there's really only one district in Ohio where it might come into play anyway. In no way do VRA considerations end in a 13-2 map like the one we got.

 

1 hour ago, DEPACincy said:

 

I'm still confused. You are going to have to explain it to me like I'm five because I don't see where they made any of the points in the 538 article.

 

They argued that compact districts would naturally favor Republicans. That's not true, and the 538 article actually confirms that. Dem voters are densely concentrated, but that's exactly why it is easy for the GOP to gerrymander by cracking them into many districts. See Hamilton County as an example. A compact district would be blue but they drew three ridiculous districts instead to dilute the population.

 

The other thing they argued is that the VRA was considered when drawing Ohio's districts and that hurt Dems too. That is also not true. The people that drew the maps testified under oath that racial demographics were not considered at all. Also, there's really only one district in Ohio where it might come into play anyway. In no way do VRA considerations end in a 13-2 map like the one we got.

 

Two things can be true at once. Republicans can be submitting egregiously gerrymandered maps in States like Ohio, and Republicans can have certain slight advantages in the redistricting process relative to their share of the popular vote.

 

Look up Pennsylvania's 3rd district (current map, their isn't an official new proposal yet). It's a Democrat +80 district (downtown Philly) surrounded entirely by three Democrat +20 districts. It's extremely compact, and doesn't look gerrymandered at all, there's also little point to gerrymandering it, since it's surrounded entirely by safe Democratic districts. Having a district going this heavily to the Dems will result in in them getting fewer seats than would be expected by their popular vote margin, since this 90-10 district is nearly casting enough votes to elect 2 Democrats. Basically 40% of the D votes here are extra. But this isn't a gerrymandered district; really the only way to correct this for the D's is to gerrymander this district, and crack the dense city center further into the suburbs to drown out more R votes. 

 

If you draw the most compact districts possible, you end up with this problem in every large city. This should put D's at a few seat disadvantage relative to their popular vote margin if you aim solely for compactness. 

 

Edit: also if you think the article I quoted confirms your point, I'd love to know where. I've read through it several times and I didn't get that. I qouted you the part where they disagree with your assertions. As far as the VRA, I don't know how it came into play with Ohio's map, I was just making a general point. 

Edited December 13, 20213 yr by Ethan
.

On 12/10/2021 at 3:07 PM, Ethan said:

See the article I posted a few comments above. It does exactly that, and, yes, that is one of the problems they discuss with the approach.

 

Thanks, I looked at it a bit deeper and it does really confirm the theory that the geographic reality of political affiliation does indeed hurt Democrats in pretty much any distracting scenario. Democrats will continue to have trouble in the House without more suburban/rural support (or unless they can get some states to give up districts altogether).

 

12 hours ago, DEPACincy said:

 

I'm still confused. You are going to have to explain it to me like I'm five because I don't see where they made any of the points in the 538 article.

 

They argued that compact districts would naturally favor Republicans. That's not true, and the 538 article actually confirms that. Dem voters are densely concentrated, but that's exactly why it is easy for the GOP to gerrymander by cracking them into many districts. See Hamilton County as an example. A compact district would be blue but they drew three ridiculous districts instead to dilute the population.

 

Here's how a computer drew the most compact districts possible - there's no blue district in Hamilton County:

 

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-maps/ohio/#algorithmic-compact

 

There's another map that follows county/city borders and even that one results in a "highly competitive" district in Hamilton County.

13 hours ago, Ethan said:

Two things can be true at once. Republicans can be submitting egregiously gerrymandered maps in States like Ohio, and Republicans can have certain slight advantages in the redistricting process relative to their share of the popular vote.

 

Look up Pennsylvania's 3rd district (current map, their isn't an official new proposal yet). It's a Democrat +80 district (downtown Philly) surrounded entirely by three Democrat +20 districts. It's extremely compact, and doesn't look gerrymandered at all, there's also little point to gerrymandering it, since it's surrounded entirely by safe Democratic districts. Having a district going this heavily to the Dems will result in in them getting fewer seats than would be expected by their popular vote margin, since this 90-10 district is nearly casting enough votes to elect 2 Democrats. Basically 40% of the D votes here are extra. But this isn't a gerrymandered district; really the only way to correct this for the D's is to gerrymander this district, and crack the dense city center further into the suburbs to drown out more R votes. 

 

If you draw the most compact districts possible, you end up with this problem in every large city. This should put D's at a few seat disadvantage relative to their popular vote margin if you aim solely for compactness. 

 

Edit: also if you think the article I quoted confirms your point, I'd love to know where. I've read through it several times and I didn't get that. I qouted you the part where they disagree with your assertions. As far as the VRA, I don't know how it came into play with Ohio's map, I was just making a general point. 

 

I'm still very confused. I didn't contradict anything you just said there. I'm very familiar with the PA 3rd district. I used to live there. Of course there are lots of D wasted votes. And yes, Republicans do have an advantage in these cases because of the Dem geography problem. I didn't say otherwise.

 

But in the R gerrymanders we've seen around the country, there's a huge difference between the popular vote in states and the number of Republican seats. Far beyond what you'd see based on the natural advantage Republicans have. Just to stick to the same example, Dems do have a lot of wasted votes in Philly, but the PA map is still a 9-9 map in a roughly 50/50 state. Because having compact, fair districts will get you pretty close in most cases. The PA map, though, was not drawn by Republicans. It was drawn by the Supreme Court after they threw out the previous Republican gerrymander. Go look at how the districts were drawn before, and how they cracked Delaware, Montgomery, and Chester Counties to dilute Democratic votes. If Republicans love compact districts, why didn't they draw compact districts around Philly? The packed voters in Philly and then cracked the Dems in the surrounding counties.

 

It comes down to this: Brutus et al. have argued that compact districts naturally favor Republicans and that's why we have such lopsided outcomes. That's not true. We have lopsided outcomes because of gerrymandering. We seem to all agree that compact districts are good, even if they would still favor Republicans just a tad because of Dem wasted votes in urban areas. So let's do that! But that's not what Republicans do when they have the power to draw the maps. They instead crack Democratic votes like they did in the PA map that was struck down.

 

1 hour ago, Ram23 said:

Here's how a computer drew the most compact districts possible - there's no blue district in Hamilton County:

 

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-maps/ohio/#algorithmic-compact

 

There's another map that follows county/city borders and even that one results in a "highly competitive" district in Hamilton County.

 

Lol, no that app actually proves what I'm saying! Forget the algorithmic map, because it doesn't make sense to draw districts that way. It's just a thought experiment. But look at the compact map that also follows county/city borders. That map has a Hamilton County district that looks almost exactly like the one that Dems proposed. Yes, it would be competitive still, but the 538 data is several years old now. It has moved left. It would be a Likely D district now. In other words, it would actually reflect the political makeup of Hamilton County voters. I'm not saying we should gerrymander Hamco for Ds. I'm saying we should create compact maps that follow communities of interest and city/county borders, because that's what the Ohio Constitution says we have to do. And Republicans in Ohio did not do that.

Just to add to this:

 

That 538 compact while following city/county borders map would be 9-7 in favor of Republicans in a neutral year if you analyzed it using the latest data. It has 16 districts instead of 15 because it's old. But the point still stands that it would actually reflect the make up of Ohio voters, which are about 55/45 Republican. So let's use the 538 map! If we all like it so much, let's go for it. But here's the problem. It's very similar to the map that was actually proposed by Dems here, and it was a non-starter for Republicans.

25 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

 

It comes down to this: Brutus et al. have argued that compact districts naturally favor Republicans and that's why we have such lopsided outcomes. That's not true. We have lopsided outcomes because of gerrymandering. We seem to all agree that compact districts are good, even if they would still favor Republicans just a tad because of Dem wasted votes in urban areas. So let's do that!

Then we don't disagree. I was making the case for the 'just a tad' Republican advantage. I agree they are gerrymandering well past that in certain States. 

 

I also agree that the splitting counties as few times as possible will result in the best maps all around. It's a simple standard, and the slight arbitrariness of county lines compared to the pure compactness algorithm yields more competitive districts. 

 

24 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

That 538 compact while following city/county borders map would be 9-7 in favor of Republicans in a neutral year

538 suggests 10-6, but small point, maybe you're right about local shifts. 

2 hours ago, DEPACincy said:

 

Lol, no that app actually proves what I'm saying! Forget the algorithmic map, because it doesn't make sense to draw districts that way. It's just a thought experiment. But look at the compact map that also follows county/city borders. That map has a Hamilton County district that looks almost exactly like the one that Dems proposed. Yes, it would be competitive still, but the 538 data is several years old now. It has moved left. It would be a Likely D district now. In other words, it would actually reflect the political makeup of Hamilton County voters. I'm not saying we should gerrymander Hamco for Ds. I'm saying we should create compact maps that follow communities of interest and city/county borders, because that's what the Ohio Constitution says we have to do. And Republicans in Ohio did not do that.

 

You summed up the crux of the debate here when you said "They argued that compact districts would naturally favor Republicans. That's not true..."

 

A map drawn by an algorithm to be as compact as possible while dismissing all other factors like political affiliation, race, poverty, city limits, etc. results in a 10R - 3D Ohio, with 3 competitive seats. My point was that is what would happen because of the nature of where people live, and that map demonstrates as much. Its only once you introduce other factors that Democrats start to see gains.

 

 

2 hours ago, DEPACincy said:

I'm not saying we should gerrymander Hamco for Ds. I'm saying we should create compact maps that follow communities of interest and city/county borders, because that's what the Ohio Constitution says we have to do

I thought the Ohio constitution only required cities not be broken up. You are allowed to break up counties?

It would make sense that this would be the case, especially because there are some cities that straddle counties and lie in 2 separate counties. In this case, breaking up county and or city could become an unachievable exercise. 

14 minutes ago, Ram23 said:

 

You summed up the crux of the debate here when you said "They argued that compact districts would naturally favor Republicans. That's not true..."

 

A map drawn by an algorithm to be as compact as possible while dismissing all other factors like political affiliation, race, poverty, city limits, etc. results in a 10R - 3D Ohio, with 3 competitive seats. My point was that is what would happen because of the nature of where people live, and that map demonstrates as much. Its only once you introduce other factors that Democrats start to see gains.

 

 

To be clear, either compact map, would most likely be 10-6 in a neutral year, the county line one just has more competitive districts. I'd be interested to see this analysis redone post census. 

 

15 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

I thought the Ohio constitution only required cities not be broken up. You are allowed to break up counties?

It would make sense that this would be the case, especially because there are some cities that straddle counties and lie in 2 separate counties. In this case, breaking up county and or city could become an unachievable exercise. 

 

This info has been available for a while. Five counties are allowed to be broken up into up to 3 districts. 18 Counties can be split into 2 districts. And the remaining 65 are not allowed to be split at all. This is all based on population sizes. Obviously we can't keep every county in tact based on math, but it helps prevent weird snake districts. The general guidelines say to follow city and county boundaries when possible, but it isn't written in stone.

28 minutes ago, Ram23 said:

 

You summed up the crux of the debate here when you said "They argued that compact districts would naturally favor Republicans. That's not true..."

 

A map drawn by an algorithm to be as compact as possible while dismissing all other factors like political affiliation, race, poverty, city limits, etc. results in a 10R - 3D Ohio, with 3 competitive seats. My point was that is what would happen because of the nature of where people live, and that map demonstrates as much. Its only once you introduce other factors that Democrats start to see gains.

 

 

 

No. It wouldn't. The compact map ends up 10-6 in a neutral year but the data is old. Based on 2020 data it would be 9-7. Yes, it could possibly go 13-3 for Republicans in a really good year. But the 2010s real map is guaranteed 12-4 Republican every time and the new map is 13-2 in a neutral year and, at best, 11-4. Those are not natural outcomes. They are due to some of the worst gerrymandering in the country. You could generate a random map and 99 percent of the time it would be more proportional than what we got. That's deliberate.

2 hours ago, Ethan said:

 

538 suggests 10-6, but small point, maybe you're right about local shifts. 

 

Yea, someone entered the map into DRA, which has 2020 data, and it showed 9-7 in a neutral year. So there's been a slight shift since they made that.

On 12/10/2021 at 3:40 PM, Brutus_buckeye said:

The thing that gets lost in much of the conversation is the districts also need to keep a population balance. you cant have one district with 850k voters and another in ohio with 650k voters. Taking the proposed district and shifting Marysville and Urbana out of it and adding in Kenton, Findlay and Upper Sandusky could create population issues in other areas because of where the population actually lives in Ohio. 

The thing that also gets lost in the conversation is that 5 state prisons and 1 private prison were gerrymandered into this district (Allen, Grafton, Lorain, Marion, Ohio Reformatory for Women, North Central) to help make a solid R district. (Prisoners cannot vote, but they count as part of a district's population.)