Monday, February 07, 2005

Times article about how there's a movement afoot to reduce the partisan gerrymandering of redistricting by having non-partisan folks do the redistricting.

In the last US Congressional elections, of 435 members of the House up for election, precisely four incumbents lost. That's shocking.

I have a much, much simpler solution. Require congressional districts to be CONVEX. Rectangular, even. Let's say this:

a. No district can be more than 10% smaller than the smallest polygon that can be drawn around its borders.
b. No district may be more than two times as long at its longest than it is long at its shortest.

What makes gerrymandering possible is that you can make a district any shape you like. You can shoot down a street to grab a few houses here and there. The original "Gerrymander" was a district that looked like a salamander. I've seen worse.

If you require districts to be convex (allowing some wiggle room for rivers and mountains, say, though it's no longer really necessary), and no more than twice as long as they are wide, it becomes very hard, even with the smartest software, to come up with districts that consistently return the incumbent.

This system works better than trying to find nonpartisan people. There ARE no nonpartisan people. But math doesn't lie.

1:29 AM

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