Gautam Mukunda wrote: >There absolutely are. I've been writing about this issue for four years >now - you have no idea how thrilled I am to hear it becoming a serious topic >of mainstream discussion. > But it has always been a topic of mainstream debate (well, since 1812, which kinda counts as always). Every time the boundaries are up for review, people talk about how wrong it is, but nothing gets done to fix it by the time the lines are drawn, and then it is off the agenda until the next review is looming. That's why it has a name, that's why there are so many different formulas for redistricting, that's why so many states have different ways of looking at it, and that's why mainstream software which helps create a gerrymander is available, but mainstream software which creates apolitical boundaries is not available.
This is the same problem that faces any political issue involving re-election - the incumbent representative can only fix it by harming his and/or his parties chances of re-election, and they're not going to do that. At least campaign funding changes hamper both sides and they have been hard enough to bring about - this one only hurts incumbents. BTW Gautam, this redistricting to change a result was invented in Massachusetts - how is it handled there now? Cheers Russell C.
