[EM] Another auto districting proposal (Crystal districting?)

[Raph Frank]

On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 4:00 PM, Juho <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> My thinking is that it might be easier to agree about the targets rather
> than the whole procedure. The targets can be simpler to define. Following
> Raph Franks model it would be thus enough to say that any N points and the
> kn values and then derive the border lines and the jointly agreed value of
> the solution from this data. That would not leave much space for strategies
> and gerrymandering. The proposed solutions would be evaluated and the one
> with best value would be declared the winner.

Well, ideally the method should be a well defined process rather than
an optimisation method.  It would take as its input a set of points
and output a map.  Splitline also requires a description of the State
boundary.

However, it would be perfectly valid to give a measure and then allow
anyone submit a map districting.

I think that if the block boundaries are decided before the census and
the number of blocks is large enough (say 100-300 people per block on
average), then it would be hard to gerrymander using block boundaries.

The process could be something like

- based on the old census, define the blocks for the new census
-- A group of contiguous old blocks with population < 500 may be
combined into a new block
-- Old blocks may be split into pieces
---- (if > 1000*N, it must be split into N+1 parts)
-- otherwise, the blocks shall remain the same as previously

- Geographic data is released

- Hold census

- Population data is released

- Format for maps is published

- Anyone can submit a map

- best map after 6 months wins.

Ofc, that requires that the SC is able to determine which map wins
based on the description of the measure in the legislation.