Non-partisan Congressional District attempt

Interesting (4.00 / 1)

I like the results of some of that. I think Northern Erie and all of Niagara County should share a representative. I think your ranges are still too big.

Also, even though you made the downstate districts tiny to make as many as possible, both seat losses came from below Orange/Putnam in your "map". Interesting.

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by: Amherst Guy @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 04:21:38 AM UTC

I agree about the range (0.00 / 0)

of total voters per district. I will probably take another cut at it by feeding more of the votes into the downstate districts and evening them out some. I don't think it will make a significant difference though. And if your criteria is going to be whole county boundaries as much as you can then you need some wiggle room in order to achieve that.

It was not a conscious effort to make the downstate districts smaller. Since those counties are larger in population then one district it was matter of trying to divide them evenly either alone or in conjunction with a neighboring county. This resulted in smaller districts.

I'll take another crack at it with districts as close to the 714,731 number as possible with remainders bleeding into the next county over. I suspect that method will require splitting counties more often which I was trying to avoid but perhaps not.

I'll take a crack at a completely partisan redistricting map later on.

If you want to create an actual map with these boundaries and post it that would be very much appreciated.

Peace,

Andrew

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by: Andrew C. White @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 05:13:17 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Is there anyway you can map this? (4.00 / 1)

We all love the maps!

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by: BingChester @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 05:03:14 AM UTC

Ah (4.00 / 1)

I see now that you say you're not good with maps. It's kind of hard to evaluate some of this because you don't say which parts of the counties are in which district.

If you want, you could e-mail me all of the district lines and I could try to map this for you.

A few preliminary comments:

The major Westchester ideas are troublesome.  I'd have to see exactly how you do it to better understand it.  Right now, Engel is Rockland + Southwestern Westchester, Lowey is mostly Westchester + part of Rockland, and Hall has northern Westchester and some more areas.  
I like the Westchester-Putnam-Dutchess idea.  That district will be easily Democratic with Poughkeepsie + northern Westchester.  Great district for Hall.

I also like what you did with part of Hinchey's district, to move it through all of Brome through Orange.

Without the maps, I'm not sure which districts are being removed here.  One of them is Nassau, I think.  Where's the other one?

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by: BingChester @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 05:11:17 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

One other problem (0.00 / 0)

You drew Hinchey out of his district.  I believe he lives in Ulster, outside of Kingston.  

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by: BingChester @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 05:14:11 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Like I said (0.00 / 0)

I was not paying any attention at all to current districts or incumbents. This was an attempt to be as blindly non-partisan in drawing a map as possible.

Peace,

Andrew

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by: Andrew C. White @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 05:37:16 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I don't have the detail data (0.00 / 0)

for dividing the split counties correctly. If I can find town by town data I'll give it a try. I simply did it mathematically with as even splits as possible abd some remainders... except for Erie and Westchester. Erie is split 58-42 and Westchester is all over the place.

I did not take current representatives into account at all in doing this. My primary goal was to make districts that encompassed whole counties as much as could be done with as little snaking around as possible. There are several variations of this that could be done of course.

Given the blind-to-current-districts method I used there are no specific districts that were eliminated but I suppose you could say District 24 and one of the snakey-assed districts down in the city. Actually, maybe it's either 17 or 18 that goes away with 24. But really, 24 in the middle of the states gets eaten up by surrounding districts and the city districts are so completely different that it is hard to say it is one or another. The only real point to be made is that currently districts 17-29 stretch essentially from the NYC limits north and west through the rest of the state. That is 13 districts. In my "map" the equivalents are 17-27 even though small portions of Westchester feed into the Bronx districts.

Anyone that feels like mapping it please feel free or tell me how I can easily do it.

Peace,

Andrew

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by: Andrew C. White @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 05:32:48 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

There's no easy way to do it persay (0.00 / 0)

I used photoshop, I don't know what Amherst Guy did.  I just grabbed a color-coded map for the current districts and then colored it in.

I guess the problem is that you have to determine which cities/towns/villages in the split counties go where.  For example, the Westchester/Bronx districts need to be cut in a specific way.  I would assume those districts are parts of the Bronx and Mt. Vernon/Yonkers/New Rochelle.  

I can map it for you if you tell me the county splits you determined.  Otherwise, it would be a shot in the dark for a lot of them, or just an estimation.

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by: BingChester @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 05:59:27 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I added an attempt at a map (0.00 / 0)

above. The county splits are completely non-realistic at this point until I get more detailed data to work with. I just drew lines across them for now.

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by: Andrew C. White @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 06:14:46 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Not bad! (4.00 / 1)

And from what I see, I think this might be my favorite map.  I send you much props.

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by: BingChester @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 06:22:24 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Also Photoshop (0.00 / 0)

Photoshop Elements for $99 + Community Ed class on how to use it for $99 = your life will improve by more than $200 worth. A net gain.

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by: Amherst Guy @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 14:29:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

and why combine (0.00 / 0)

both bronx districts with westchester? was my only quip. you know, those are rather disparate constituencies. depending of course on how you map it.  

It is difficult to get the news from poems


Yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.

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by: RichardPlatypus @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 19:15:56 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Had to even out the numbers somehow (0.00 / 0)

or else a couple of the districts would have been way too large.

I may go back and review that again as it was late (early?) and those last couple districts where upstate meets NYC could probably be smoothed out a bit better.

Peace,

Andrew

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by: Andrew C. White @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 21:14:57 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

i'm going to put this up on the FP (4.00 / 1)

in the morning.

TODAY is day one. It always is.

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by: phillip anderson @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 05:05:02 AM UTC

For those who like color-coded maps (4.00 / 2)

Like me.

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by: BingChester @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 06:44:23 AM UTC

Excellent! (0.00 / 0)

Thank you. Much, much better visual. Thank you.

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by: Andrew C. White @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 21:16:05 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Andrew, you need to draw those two Suffolk Districts as East and West (0.00 / 0)

If part of the intent is to keep continuity with identity on a local basis the North/South line does not meet the way the county residents view their relationship.  It divides the rural north fork and south fork from one another while overwhelming them with the more urbanized western towns like Huntington and Babylon.  A Brookhaven and five east end towns and then an Islip Huntington,Smithtown district would be drawing the boundary in a more regional identity fashion. But overall statewide, your work looks much better than all these years of bastardized gerrymandering.

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by: politics64 @ Tue Nov 25, 2008 at 03:18:20 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Agreed (0.00 / 0)

I think the Long Island districts are somewhat problematic.  If the idea is to have 4 Long Island districts instead of 5, so be it.  However, Suffolk gets 2.5 seats and Nassau gets 1.5.  I always thought Nassau has a larger population.  So maybe that needs to be corrected?

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by: BingChester @ Tue Nov 25, 2008 at 04:59:13 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I like (4.00 / 1)

the way you divvied up WNY.

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by: rottenchester @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 18:14:17 PM UTC

Makes a lot more sense (4.00 / 1)

then the current gyrations and manipulations doesn't it?

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by: Andrew C. White @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 21:16:38 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

lot better job (4.00 / 2)

Most of the districts make sense now.

The one that might be changed is the splitting of eastern Long Island north and south.

Both attempts were intresting, and I hope to see redistricting reform.

 

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by: krone5 @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 20:25:24 PM UTC

The division of districts (4.00 / 1)

in the city and on Long Island were just arbitrary lines to show there were multiple districts. I'd need much more fine tuned and detailed data in order to properly carve out districts there.

Upstate was much easier as they all follow county border lines except for Erie where the line is again drawn in a completely arbitrary place intended to simply show that it is about a 60/40 split between the two districts.  

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by: Andrew C. White @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 21:19:14 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

monroe county as one (4.00 / 1)

i dont think that monroe should be the only county to have there own congressman, and if louise is not around in 2012 this would be a tough seat for a dem to win,  as is displayed  in there county wide election, 3 of the 4 are in republican control, but if Joe Morrelli stays at the helm at mcdc that could change, no it will change

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by: scott rytlewski @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 20:48:29 PM UTC

Except that Monroe County's (4.00 / 1)

population falls exactly in the range for a district. All other counties are either too large or too small to be one district.

And if you look at the enrollment numbers Monroe is one of the few upstate districts to have a democratic enrollment advantage.

The thing I liked most about this was that after I'd drawn it and then analyzed the resulting enrollment numbers it showed most districts being highly competitive and that is the idea behind non-partisan districting. Partisan-drawn districts are bad for democracy even if good for the party I happen to favor. Non-partisan districts, in theory, ought to do a far better job of reflecting the views of the people in any given locale. These show how evenly split upstate is with a slight edge to Republicans in most places but with the high percentage of blanks (or independents) being more than enough to flip and election in one direction or another.

Competitive elections are a good thing.  

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by: Andrew C. White @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 21:24:18 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

very true (4.00 / 1)

but if one party plays fair is the other expected too so if the dems have control it probelly is wrong, but fair is fair  

 i would like to thank you for taking the time to post a map and ans question this is a great topic

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by: scott rytlewski @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 23:46:20 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Another Completely non-partisan map (4.00 / 1)

This is called the shortest line method. It's purely mathematical.

The math:

  1. Start with the boundary outline of the state.
  2. Let N=A+B where A and B are as nearly equal whole numbers as possible.
     (For example, 7=4+3. More precisely, A = N/2, B=N/2.)
  3. Among all possible dividing lines that split the state into two parts with population ratio A:B, choose the shortest.
  4. We now have two hemi-states, each to contain a specified number (namely A and B) of districts. Handle them recursively via the same splitting procedure.

I used to like but but have since realized that it sucks because it does not take media market cost into account, and in some states loaded with media markets (Texas and Ohio come to mind) it creates mind-bogglingly expensive districts. Additionally, it makes districts where the citizens have nothing in common.

BUT it is completely unbiased. So there you go.

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by: Amherst Guy @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 21:04:56 PM UTC

Media market costs (0.00 / 0)

should not be a consideration in drawing districts in my opinion.

But county lines are fairly arbitrary as well so another method (like this one) that draws boundaries as close to te magic population number (in this case 714,731) is another non-partisan way of doing it.

The problem with a purely mathematical approach is, as you say, that it can group together constituencies that have nothing to do with each other in real life and could easily result in splitting like constituencies into multiple odd districts.

Using county, or even better perhaps, town line boundaries with a goal of getting as close to the magic number as possible is far better in grouping like constituencies together.

Note however, how close your map matches mine... in an approximate sort of way. They really aren't that far off.

Peace,

Andrew

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by: Andrew C. White @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 21:32:09 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Genesee County (CD-26) (4.00 / 1)

Our numbers are actually 9,441 Dem, 15,817 Rep and 7,129 blank.

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by: daniel.jones @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 23:02:21 PM UTC

Thanks... I used the numbers (0.00 / 0)

from the state board site that includes the inactives so the numbers are always a bit skewed and a bit behind the county board numbers.

Peace,

Andrew

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by: Andrew C. White @ Mon Nov 24, 2008 at 01:39:09 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

The Problem with Success (0.00 / 0)

This would have been easier and more fun if Democrats had not won almost all the seats the past two elections.  Now, we are likely going to have to eliminate at least one of our own to get to -2.  

Partisans should also be careful about being too greedy.  Democratic gains in PA were made possible because the GOP went too far in gerrymandering.  Instead of packing Dems into a safe seat, they split them among many seats.  Now, those seats are falling to us one at a time.

There are a lot of Republicans in upstate NY.  If we do not preserve a couple of solid red seats, we will probably put several of our Dems at risk.  It seems the population loss in central & western NY will lead to the elimination of 2 seats out there.  If we have to keep both the Lee & McHugh seats for packing Republicans, then we should give Peter King a district which includes a lot of Democrats from Queens.

Francis Vecellio

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by: fvecellio @ Mon Nov 24, 2008 at 15:48:19 PM UTC

I like competitive seats (0.00 / 0)

It keeps politicians away from corruption.

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by: Amherst Guy @ Mon Nov 24, 2008 at 16:13:55 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Better get that checkbook out for Arcuri now. (4.00 / 1)

Poor guy can't catch a break.  Barely survived a millionaire-with-a-bucket-list money avalanche this year, and now you all have him taking on McHugh in '12.  You guys are mean.

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by: Steaming Pile @ Mon Nov 24, 2008 at 21:30:27 PM UTC

In many ways (0.00 / 0)

It would make more sense for Oneida to be part of the new "NY-23", but it's a population game.  I think you could shift some counties around here, or maybe cut Oneida in half and give McHugh part of a northern Gillibrand county.

As much as I appreciate Andrew's attempt at complete non-partisan district mapping, drawing a district where no incumbent currently lives is jut not going to happen.  Might as well be slightly pragmatic about this plan.

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by: BingChester @ Mon Nov 24, 2008 at 23:16:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

NY13 (4.00 / 1)

Great work Andrew.  I think you may have NY13 and 14 switched.  NY13 currently encompasses all of Richmond County and a small portion of Brooklyn.   Unless you are renumbering them and I missed that.

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by: jonah in nyc @ Mon Nov 24, 2008 at 21:39:46 PM UTC

Thanks (0.00 / 0)

I wasn't paying any attention at all to current district lines or numbers. I simply started numbering from the east end of Long Island out to Chautauqua.

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by: Andrew C. White @ Wed Nov 26, 2008 at 16:44:55 PM UTC

[ Parent ]