<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-reply;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
color:#1F497D;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Interesting, Tom, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>What utility do you imagine is being maximized in your plan? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>N<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Nicholas S. Thompson<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Clark University<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/"><span style='color:#0563C1'>http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> Friam [mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Tom Johnson<br><b>Sent:</b> Saturday, November 03, 2018 4:54 PM<br><b>To:</b> Friam@redfish. com <friam@redfish.com><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [FRIAM] gerrymandering algorithm question<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>TJ<br clear=all><o:p></o:p></p><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><br>============================================<br>Tom Johnson<br>Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA<br>505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)<br><a href="http://nmfog.org" target="_blank"><b><span style='color:#0B5394'>NM Foundation for Open Government</span></b></a><br><b><span style='color:blue'>Check out <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671" target="_blank">It's The People's Data</a></span></b><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://www.jtjohnson.com/" target="_blank">http://www.jtjohnson.com</a> <a href="mailto:tom@jtjohnson.com" target="_blank">tom@jtjohnson.com</a><br>============================================<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Sat, Nov 3, 2018 at 4:14 PM Nick Thompson <<a href="mailto:nickthompson@earthlink.net">nickthompson@earthlink.net</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'>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. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'>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? </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'>Nick </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'>Nicholas S. Thompson</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'>Clark University</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'><a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/" target="_blank"><span style='color:#0563C1'>http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b>From:</b> Friam [mailto:<a href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com" target="_blank">friam-bounces@redfish.com</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Marcus Daniels<br><b>Sent:</b> Saturday, November 03, 2018 11:24 AM<br><b>To:</b> The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <<a href="mailto:friam@redfish.com" target="_blank">friam@redfish.com</a>><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [FRIAM] gerrymandering algorithm question<o:p></o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'>Nick writes:</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'>“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.”</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>Marcus<o:p></o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal>============================================================<br>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br>Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College<br>to unsubscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com" target="_blank">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><br>FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a> by Dr. Strangelove<o:p></o:p></p></blockquote></div></div></body></html>