[EL] Gerrymander Standard's implications for Evenwel case

[David Ely]

I agree. My thought on this was that in order for it to work it would need to be normalized (each district vote total = 1).  But I didn’t read the entry so I don’t know if they thought of it or what the details might be.

 

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Douglas Johnson
Sent: Monday, June 01, 2015 11:36 AM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Gerrymander Standard's implications for Evenwel case

 

 

“The authors argue that the right to equal protection of individual voters implies that a majority of voters should be able to elect a majority of representatives”

 

Isn’t that exactly the same point as the Texas plaintiffs are making in the Evenwel v. Abbott “one person, one vote” case? 

 

I remember calculating a few years ago that in an extreme case it could take only something like 21% of the votes cast in California Assembly elections to win a majority of the seats in the Assembly, because of the radical difference in the number of eligible voters among the districts. 

 

I share this not as an advocate of Evenwel (I have taken a position either way on that case), but rather as a caution against where groups may find themselves if they do not carefully consider the wider implications of the “competitiveness” measures they advocate.

 

-          Doug

 

Douglas Johnson, Fellow

Rose Institute of State and Local Government

at Claremont McKenna College 

douglas.johnson at cmc.edu

310-200-2058 

 

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Hasen
Sent: Monday, June 1, 2015 6:06 AM
To: law-election at UCI.edu
Subject: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 6/1/15

 

Posted in  <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=109> Celebrity Justice,  <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29> Supreme Court


 <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72987> Common Cause “Gerrymander Standard” Third Place Winner


Posted on  <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72987> June 1, 2015 6:00 am by  <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=5> Dan Tokaji

As co-chairs of  <http://www.commoncause.org/issues/voting-and-elections/redistricting/gerrymander-standard-writing-competition.html> Common Cause’s inaugural Democracy Prize writing competition to identify the best “gerrymander standard”, it’s our privilege to announce the winners of the competition this week,  <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=72948> as promised on Friday.  First up is our third-place entry, which is titled “A Discernable and Manageable Standard for Partisan Gerrymandering.” The authors are  <https://pure.strath.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/anthony-mcgann%28eb449683-abae-4596-b06c-61a406056f45%29.html> Anthony McGann from the University of Strathclyde,  <http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5443> Charles Anthony Smith and  <http://www.polisci.uci.edu/grad/students.php> Alex Keena from UC Irvine, and  <http://cla.calpoly.edu/pols_michael_latner.html> Michael Latner from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

This paper argues that the way to effectively combat partisan gerrymandering is to demonstrate that existing measures can be grounded in constitutionally protected rights. The authors argue that the right to equal protection of individual voters implies that a majority of voters should be able to elect a majority of representatives. They then show why this majority rule principle logically implies the partisan symmetry standard, which means that each party can elect the same fraction of legislative seats as the other party would receive if it had received the same percentage of voters. Finally, the authors explain how the partisan symmetry standard can be implemented.

This paper sheds important light on theories for measuring gerrymandering with which the legal community is already familiar and comfortable. The authors effectively explain how these measurements illuminate the anti-democratic consequences of partisan gerrymandering, and how litigators can argue that the imbalance between votes and outcomes represents a constitutional violation.

Congratulations to the third place winners.  <http://www.commoncause.org/issues/voting-and-elections/redistricting/a-discernable-and-manageable.pdf> Read the paper’s introduction here. The final version will be published in Election Law Journal this fall. And stay tuned. The second-place winner will be announced tomorrow and the first-place winner Wednesday.

Norm Ornstein & Dan Tokaji 

 
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