Re:How to get rid of gerrymandering: the math is surprising
by somenameforme on Thursday May 12, 2022 @03:11AM
(#31350235)
Interesting idea. Mathematically it seems that it would on average create a perfect distribution. But it'd also lend itself to some substantial variance.
Imagine you have a 650-350 voter lead in a state with 10 districts. The way you maximize the number of competitive election is by packing 3 districts 100-0. The party with 650 voters now has the same number of voters remaining as the party with 350, for the next 7 districts.
Mathematically this works out perfectly because the party with 650 voters has an overall seat expectation of (3 + 7 * 0.5) = 6.5, but if you run the math further here's how it looks. The party with 35% of the representation gets (assuming a 50% outcome per competitive election):
Imagine you have a 650-350 voter lead in a state with 10 districts. The way you maximize the number of competitive election is by packing 3 districts 100-0. The party with 650 voters now has the same number of voters remaining as the party with 350, for the next 7 districts.
Mathematically this works out perfectly because the party with 650 voters has an overall seat expectation of (3 + 7 * 0.5) = 6.5, but if you run the math further here's how it looks. The party with 35% of the representation gets (assuming a 50% outcome per competitive election):
===============
0 seats = 1%
1 seats = 6%
2 seats = 16%
3 seats = 27%
4 seats = 27%
5 seats = 16%
6 seats = 6%
7 seats = 1%
===============