I wrote the (MapInfo-based) software used by Colorado in the mid-nineties to redistrict the southern part of the state and spent quite a bit of effort including rules for "compactness" to try to avoid creative redistricting. We drew on a Michigan law based on work by Ernest C. Reock, Jr. that defined compactness as the ratio of district area to the area of the minimum circumscribing circle. The idea is to create districts with Reock scores as close to 1.0 as possible.
Of course other criteria matter too -- even in a fair redistricting -- and Reock scores alone aren't enough (not to mention there's several ways to measure compactness.) What I'm getting at is that the tools can be built to do fair political engineering, but they don't enforce "fair." So is the burden of morality on the creator of tools or on the users? -- - Bill Thoen ------------------------------------------------------------ GISnet, 1401 Walnut St., Suite C, Boulder, CO 80302 tel: 303-786-9961, fax: 303-443-4856 http://www.gisnet.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------ [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > We may be contributing to a very bad trend in what we do..! I may have to > light a blue touch paper and retire here - a very risky area - but I'm not > making any sort of partisan point. > > Over Christmas I've been catching up on some reading and was both alarmed and > fascinated by a long article in the New Yorker about gerrymandering in the > US. To gerrymander is defined by Dictionary.com as "To divide (a geographic > area) into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in > elections". There are now tools available that allow the use of census data, > opinion polls, lifestyle etc to very high levels of accuracy previously > unavailable. Presumably there are MapInfo partners that sell them. > > Voting districts need redrawing all the time of course. Managing this to > ensure your rivals votes are nullified or reduced by shunting districts > around so that they are swallowed up - or 'unhelpful' districts are merged - > is the gerrymandering aspect. Its actually illegal in England but thats not > to say it doesn't go on. This sort of thing has always happened but GIS makes > it more precise - one voting district of notably bizarre shape in > Philadelphia has been structured by local politicians (Republican in this > case) to look like an 'upside down Chinese Dragon'. > > By these means the politicians ensure that they corrall off 'their' vote into > safe blocks and then concentrate on the undecided voters when electioneering > (the figure of 10% was used in the article). The result of this is to make > the campaigning more and more shrill as there is no need to appeal to the > mass of voters. The sheer violence of the language used in US election > campaigns has always amazed me (I was there in 84 and 94) but its apparently > getting much worse. It also means that the middle ground of opinion is > ignored in the various legislatures - Republican/Democrat cooperation is now > almost non-existent even on non-contentious issues. > > Obviously the New Yorker has what many listers would call through gritted > teeth a 'liberal bias' but I think this is a valid point and even allowing > for greater controls it could happen over here. > > I suppose if the tools are there they will get used but does anyone else > share this concern? > > And now I'm going to change my identity and move to Patagonia. > > Paul Crisp > > Syntegra > Innovation Place Delta Bank Road Newcastle NE11 9DJ > Tel 0191 461 4522 Fax 0191 460 1987 --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message number: 9759
