Re Will the fate of America's democracy be decided by this US supreme court case?

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

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 Sadowsky 
>   
> > On 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,
> > >
> > > --Ridge
> > >
> > > > On 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 com
> > > > >
> > > > > > Subject: [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.html
> >
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