An IMO decently interesting semi-interactive site that basically exists so that people can try to do the work of redistricting the US house and the state legislatures's houses themselves, and the...
An IMO decently interesting semi-interactive site that basically exists so that people can try to do the work of redistricting the US house and the state legislatures's houses themselves, and the best scoring maps by the metrics of county splitting, compactness, proportionality, minority representation/power and competitiveness are shown on the website. (With some minimum requirements for other metrics.) I think one of the most interesting things it demonstrates is that sometimes making proportional maps without gerrymandering is often basically impossible. Looking at Indiana's page for example will show that the most proportional map for the state thereis a Democratic gerrymander and that making 4 Democratic districts in Indiana (the most proportional amount) requires you to wire a bunch of cities together in a way that very much is gerrymandering, and in other states like Oklahoma or Massachusetts the political geography makes it literally impossible to make a truly fair map.
Yup. Killing FPTP fixes that problem easily though. Replacing with proportional representation with large proportional districts is easy. Here is an almost perfectly proportional map of PA Senate...
I think one of the most interesting things it demonstrates is that sometimes making proportional maps without gerrymandering is often basically impossible.
Yup. Killing FPTP fixes that problem easily though. Replacing with proportional representation with large proportional districts is easy.
You hardly even need districts with proper proportional representation. These districts make sense though, because each district roughly surrounds their urban economic center. They could be named as follows, with the number of representatives proportionally allocated.
Philadelphia Urban - 10 representatives
Philadelphia Suburban - 10 representatives
North - 3 representatives
South-Central - 10 representatives
Pittsburgh Area - 10 representatives
Scranton Area - 5 representatives
Erie Area - 2 representatives
By organizing like this, it's more likely that the representatives from both major parties will be more focused on the needs of their population. Erie and Philadelphia have very different needs, regardless of which party is running. It can also help eliminate the disproportionate difference between House and Senate power. Currently in the PA House/Senate, many seats are effectively uncontested by the other party due to FPTP districting. The proportional nature of the proposal likely wouldn't need much further sub-division of districts, because the parties have to compete broadly in the entire district to win favorability. That 24% of Republicans in Philadelphia now have a voice, as do the 33% of democrats in the North. Everybody wins.
Analyzing the map as-made doesn't return precise results, because it's still expecting small districts with FPTP. But if you look at popular vote of PA, and the current representation in the PA Senate, it looks very different. I leveraged the PA House votes for popularity in 2020, as they are elected every 2 years. This makes the Republican popular vote percentage 52.73%, which is roughly in line with my gut for PA when you remove Trump from the equation. The PA Senate elects every 4 years, but is split so only half are on presidential election years, which creates very messy swings. Below is the results.
Definitely. FairVote made multi-winner/member house maps for every state with more than 1 representative here and you can see it makes things significantly better representation-wise. Also, I...
Yup. Killing FPTP fixes that problem easily though. Replacing with proportional representation with large proportional districts is easy.
Definitely. FairVote made multi-winner/member house maps for every state with more than 1 representative here and you can see it makes things significantly better representation-wise.
Also, I polished your map and tweaked the districts to show their proper population deviation.
An IMO decently interesting semi-interactive site that basically exists so that people can try to do the work of redistricting the US house and the state legislatures's houses themselves, and the best scoring maps by the metrics of county splitting, compactness, proportionality, minority representation/power and competitiveness are shown on the website. (With some minimum requirements for other metrics.) I think one of the most interesting things it demonstrates is that sometimes making proportional maps without gerrymandering is often basically impossible. Looking at Indiana's page for example will show that the most proportional map for the state there is a Democratic gerrymander and that making 4 Democratic districts in Indiana (the most proportional amount) requires you to wire a bunch of cities together in a way that very much is gerrymandering, and in other states like Oklahoma or Massachusetts the political geography makes it literally impossible to make a truly fair map.
Yup. Killing FPTP fixes that problem easily though. Replacing with proportional representation with large proportional districts is easy.
Here is an almost perfectly proportional map of PA Senate broken into 7 districts instead of 50 that I hacked up.. I have lived and worked in 3 of these districts, and conversed extensively with my brother whom also worked in another. I didn't really get them perfect because I was unwilling to redraw the districts themselves. But it's close enough for a demonstration.
You hardly even need districts with proper proportional representation. These districts make sense though, because each district roughly surrounds their urban economic center. They could be named as follows, with the number of representatives proportionally allocated.
By organizing like this, it's more likely that the representatives from both major parties will be more focused on the needs of their population. Erie and Philadelphia have very different needs, regardless of which party is running. It can also help eliminate the disproportionate difference between House and Senate power. Currently in the PA House/Senate, many seats are effectively uncontested by the other party due to FPTP districting. The proportional nature of the proposal likely wouldn't need much further sub-division of districts, because the parties have to compete broadly in the entire district to win favorability. That 24% of Republicans in Philadelphia now have a voice, as do the 33% of democrats in the North. Everybody wins.
Analyzing the map as-made doesn't return precise results, because it's still expecting small districts with FPTP. But if you look at popular vote of PA, and the current representation in the PA Senate, it looks very different. I leveraged the PA House votes for popularity in 2020, as they are elected every 2 years. This makes the Republican popular vote percentage 52.73%, which is roughly in line with my gut for PA when you remove Trump from the equation. The PA Senate elects every 4 years, but is split so only half are on presidential election years, which creates very messy swings. Below is the results.
Definitely. FairVote made multi-winner/member house maps for every state with more than 1 representative here and you can see it makes things significantly better representation-wise.
Also, I polished your map and tweaked the districts to show their proper population deviation.
Interestingly enough, this is not made by Dave Wasserman, aka @redistrict on Twitter, which was my first thought.