Students Solved Gerrymandering For A Science Project. The Court Should Use Their Method In Alabama

[LeroyDumonde]

Okay lets look at what your question is again...


You’re asking the population numbers of the congressional districts for where each of the kids on the teams live? I would imagine the kids live in different districts in some cases...

Sort of a weird question...

Anyway...I don’t know. Your point?

I'm not asking about each member of the team's district. The clue is in me not asking about each team member. I'm talking about each of the districts they proposed.

 

[candycorn]

I'm not asking about each member of the team's district. The clue is in me not asking about each team member. I'm talking about each of the districts they proposed.

Here is what you said:

Any idea what the population numbers for each of the team's districts are?

I would imagine they are pretty similar. You’d have to ask them or the OP. My system would deliver districts that have very close population totals.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

The article doesn’t seem to be describing a system or “algorithm” that can be universally used to show some “best” drawing of election districts. I am quite certain that is an impossible and hopeless quest.

There is a better solution to gerrymandering that makes drawing and redrawing of districts almost irrelevant. It involves, for example in the case of U.S. Congressional elections, the combining of districts and then using ranked choice voting to automatically choose multiple candidates that fairly and proportionally represent the genuine will of all the voters.

Many Americans are now becoming aware of ordinary Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) and its superiority as a system for choosing a single winner of an election with three or more candidates. The same RCV system can be adapted to choose multiple winners of combined contiguous election districts and results in fairer and more democratic outcomes.

This is a “Gold Standard” reform that — probably after RCV becomes better understood and more widely instituted — can solve the party-partisan gerimandering problem, and others as well. It should be noted that while this system in practice will probably lead to a fairer representation of minority and women voters, it is completely neutral, color blind and gender blind, and is “proportional” not in terms of these categories, or even of parties, but in terms of votes actually cast.

It is used already in Europe in several countries. It takes some study to understand its inherent advantages, though for voters themselves it should not prove much more complex or difficult than an RCV vote for a single vacant position.

Here are details:

Proportional RCV Information - FairVote

fairvote.org

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

These 7 districts are clearly Congressional House of Representatives districts, all of which now represent somewhat over 700,000 people. There are somewhat over 5 million people in Alabama. The allotment of the number for each state may change after any 10 year federal census based on changes in total population, but the total number of members is now fixed by law at 435, and each state must have at least one rep according to the Constitution. Though Wyoming and Vermont (and possibly Alaska) have populations under the 700,000+ figure, they get one House member and hence only have one Congressional district. Other states are free to draw up districts so long as each has approximately the same number of people (not necessarily voters). At least that’s what I think is the case.

Of course their are other districts that exist for State representatives, These too are often gerrymandered.

 

[LeroyDumonde]

The article doesn’t seem to be describing a system or “algorithm” that can be universally used to show some “best” drawing of election districts. I am quite certain that is an impossible and hopeless quest.

There is a better solution to gerrymandering that makes drawing and redrawing of districts almost irrelevant. It involves, for example in the case of U.S. Congressional elections, the combining of districts and then using ranked choice voting to automatically choose multiple candidates that fairly and proportionally represent the genuine will of all the voters.

Many Americans are now becoming aware of ordinary Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) and its superiority as a system for choosing a single winner of an election with three or more candidates. The same RCV system can be adapted to choose multiple winners of combined contiguous election districts and results in fairer and more democratic outcomes.

This is a “Gold Standard” reform that — probably after RCV becomes better understood and more widely instituted — can solve the party-partisan gerimandering problem, and others as well. It should be noted that while this system in practice will probably lead to a fairer representation of minority and women voters, it is completely neutral, color blind and gender blind, and is “proportional” not in terms of these categories, or even of parties, but in terms of votes actually cast.

It is used already in Europe in several countries. It takes some study to understand its inherent advantages, though for voters themselves it should not prove much more complex or difficult than an RCV vote for a single vacant position.

Here are details:

Proportional RCV Information - FairVote

fairvote.org

Ranked choice doesn't matter when all the candidates suck.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Ranked choice doesn't matter when all the candidates suck.

That is certainly true. But one of the advantages of Ranked Choice Voting is it allows more independents, new political movements and smaller parties or popular voices within the two parties — pushed neither by extremists nor party regulars — to be heard and to get elected.

If widely adopted it could lead to fundamental changes, a weakening of the two-party stranglehold, and a resurgence of genuine American democracy.