> Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:07:42 -0400 > From: Brian Olson <b...@bolson.org> > Subject: [EM] Redistricting, now with racial demographics > To: Election Methods Mailing List <election-meth...@electorama.com>
> > I've updated my redistricting site ( http://bolson.org/dist/ ) to > include the racial breakdown of all current congressional districts > (sometimes interesting by itself) and that of the compactness based > districts I have come up with. If you want you can jump directly to > http://bolson.org/dist/ > XX where XX is any US state abbreviation. > > Brian Olson > http://bolson.org/ > > Brian, What is your definition of "contiguous districts"? How do you get a distance for each person for calculating "average straight-line distance per person from the geographic centers of the districts"? Wouldn't simply minimizing the sum of perimeters of all the districts have similar effect as trying to measure the distance of every person from the "center" of the district to obtain the average? How do you define the "center of the district"? What data do you obtain to calculate your method? There is a new group in Utah called Fair Boundaries who are trying to get fair districting there (but that is a difficult proposition in Utah where elections are the most secretively conducted of any state and where the state constitution gives authority to the legislators to draw their own districts and federal districts. I've made a proposal for redistricting that also uses a simple mathematical method of election administration complexity that is necessary for getting the support of election officials for any plan and is also a good idea regardless. Here are my thoughts on how to do fair, compact districts that would be easy to serve and administer, as well as compact: http://electionmathematics.org/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=6&MMN_position=9:9 ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info