[FRIAM] gerrymandering algorithm question

[Tom Johnson]

First, we would have to agree on whether there will be objectives related
to the demography of any district?  I prefer only counting the number of
current population 18 and over.  Or some would argue for the total
population of any age.  But given either choice, there will be serious
suggestions that doing so would work hardship on racial, ethnic or other
groups.  Could be, but it could also mean that anyone running for office
would probably have to find a way to appeal to ALL voters.

Second, let's say we're creating Congressional districts.  Overlay a state
with a grid of hexagons of X diameter; could be 100 yards or 1000.  I don't
know, but perhaps something like Netlogo could give us a scalable system to
run tests.

Third, given a known population of potential voters, we know how many
Congressional districts a state would have.  Randomly distribute that
number of hexagons across the state with the objective of maximizing the
centroid distances of all the hexagons.

Fourth, expand out from each hexagon one additional hexagon at a time in a
circular fashion with all expansions starting on the same side of the
original hexagon.  Total the number of potential voters.  If there are no
potential voters in a hexagon, advance one more in the rotation.  Then
repeat the same expansion, total the voters and do it again until the
desired district population is reached.

There are obvious problems here: e.g. what happens when a district
encounters a state boundary or another district's hexagon early on?  I
don't have a solution (yet).  But I think this simulation could be easily
tested without a lot of CPU overhead.  And after the districts are created,
we could start to look at the demographics of the potential voters.

TJ

============================================
Tom Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)                                    505.473.9646(h)
*NM Foundation for Open Government* <http://nmfog.org>
*Check out It's The People's Data
<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671>*
http://www.jtjohnson.com                   tom at jtjohnson.com
============================================


On Sat, Nov 3, 2018 at 4:14 PM Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net>
wrote:

> Oh, I absolutely agree that we could design districts to maximize any
> variable we wanted.  And with a little luck, we might maximize a couple, or
> even three.  But inevitably, we will encounter some variable that is
> negatively correlated with those we already maximize, so even we
> philosopher kings will be dissatisfied with the result.
>
>
>
> So, you philosopher-kings out there:  if you were designing districts out
> there, how would you do it.  How about all districts at-large?  Ranked
> choice voting?  How about requiring all districts to match the state-wide
> political distribution of the whole state and redistricting after every
> election?  Seriously.  How would you do it?
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Marcus
> Daniels
> *Sent:* Saturday, November 03, 2018 11:24 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] gerrymandering algorithm question
>
>
>
> Nick writes:
>
>
>
> “I don’t mean to say that “fair districts” aren’t possible.  I just mean
> to say that I, as your philosopher-king, could not design them.”
>
>
>
> Wasn’t there a recent effort by the MIT Sloan school to redesign the
> school bus routes in Boston?   They managed to reduce the cost and time of
> the routes by a large amount, but then many complained because it didn’t
> reflect the underlying class structure of the community and the preferences
> of the richer communities.
>
>
>
> One can design an optimization to balance any set of goals.  It’s just
> that some of the goals we don’t talk about.  They are wired-in to our
> reptile brain as baseline expectations and not reflected in the political
> conversations of dinner parties.
>
>
>
> Marcus
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