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Re Will the fate of America's democracy be decided by this US supreme court case?
From: "Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2017 16:44:03 -0400
Begin forwarded message:
From: George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky () gmail com> Date: October 3, 2017 at 4:42:45 PM EDT To: Farber Dave <dave () farber net> Subject: Re: [IP] Re Will the fate of America's democracy be decided by this US supreme court case? Dave, [for IP if you would like] I worked with Morris Davis in 1964 to do what Ridgely Evens suggests below. Davis, Director of the Yale Computer Center, was appointed a special Master by the Federal Court in Connecticut to come up with a plan for Connecticut's congressional districts. We used two algorithms: 1. An iterative quadratic programming method to map Connecticut's 169 towns into districts, with initial manually placed centroids that moved in successive rounds to minimize the quadratic cumulative distance function from centroids to towns, with constraints on near equality of population. These methods were originated and used in Delaware by Jim Weaver and Sid Hess and can be found via search. 2. Pairs of orthogonal scans (E-W, N-S) of the geography to provide the right number of districts of roughly equal population. We published the results of this method in "Legislative Districting by Computer," Jurimetrics, Vol. 8, No. 4, June 1968, pp. 77-98. Both methods yielded intuitively sensible partitionings of the state, and were used as a a basis for negotiation by the legislature. I'm sure that similar and probably better methods are available today. The issue is not feasibility; it's a matter of political will and entrenched power. George SadowskyOn Oct 3, 2017, at 3:38 PM, Dave Farber <farber () gmail com> wrote: Begin forwarded message:From: Ridgely Evers <rce () evers org> Date: October 3, 2017 at 3:35:59 PM EDT To: Farber David <dave () farber net> Subject: Re: [IP] Re Will the fate of America's democracy be decided by this US supreme court case? Interestingly, though SCOTUS won't take this into account, today's mapping data would enable an entirely algorithmic mechanism for optimizing district boundaries according to a public ruleset. The rules could, for example, start with equal population +/- X% minimize perimeter respect natural boundaries (rivers, for example) maximize racial diversity etc. Then, the debate could focus on the rules, which is where it strikes me the focus should be. As I said, won't happen. But it's nice to think about it. Best, --RidgeOn Oct 3, 2017, at 9:57 AM, Dave Farber <farber () gmail com> wrote: Begin forwarded message:From: Larry press <larrypress () gmail com> Date: October 3, 2017 at 12:39:42 PM EDT To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net> Cc: ip <ip () listbox com> Subject: Re: [IP] Will the fate of America's democracy be decided by this US supreme court case? Reply-To: larrypress () gmail comSubject: [Dewayne-Net] Will the fate of America's democracy be decided by this US supreme court case?Gerrymandering dates back to the 18th century, but Internet data, GIS software and donors like the Koch brothers have improved and automated it. http://cis471.blogspot.com/2017/04/modern-internet-enabled-gerrymandering.htmlArchives | Modify Your Subscription | Unsubscribe Now
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- Re Will the fate of America's democracy be decided by this US supreme court case? Dave Farber (Oct 03)
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- Re Will the fate of America's democracy be decided by this US supreme court case? Dave Farber (Oct 03)
- Re Will the fate of America's democracy be decided by this US supreme court case? Dave Farber (Oct 03)