[EM] Election-Methods Digest, Vol 61, Issue 6

[Kathy Dopp]

> Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:07:42 -0400
> From: Brian Olson <bql at bolson.org>
> Subject: [EM] Redistricting, now with racial demographics
> To: Election Methods Mailing List <election-methods at electorama.com>

>
> I've updated my redistricting site ( http://bolson.org/dist/ ) to
> include the racial breakdown of all current congressional districts
> (sometimes interesting by itself) and that of the compactness based
> districts I have come up with. If you want you can jump directly to http://bolson.org/dist/
>  XX where XX is any US state abbreviation.
>
> Brian Olson
> http://bolson.org/
>
>

Brian,

What is your definition of "contiguous districts"?

How do you get a distance for each person for calculating "average
straight-line distance per person from the geographic centers of the
districts"?

Wouldn't simply minimizing the sum of perimeters of all the districts
have similar effect as trying to measure the distance of every person
from the "center" of the district to obtain the average?

How do you define the "center of the district"?

What data do you obtain to calculate your method?

There is a new group in Utah called Fair Boundaries who are trying to
get fair districting there (but that is a difficult proposition in
Utah where elections are the most secretively conducted of any state
and where the state constitution gives authority to the legislators to
draw their own districts and federal districts.

I've made a proposal for redistricting that also uses a simple
mathematical method of election administration complexity that is
necessary for getting the support of election officials for any plan
and is also a good idea regardless.

Here are my thoughts on how to do fair, compact districts that would
be easy to serve and administer, as well as compact:

http://electionmathematics.org/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=6&MMN_position=9:9