[EL] Simulated Districting Plans and Majority-Minority Districts

[Douglas Johnson]

Just to add to that, am I correct that, in addition to ignoring voting
rights act-driven considerations, all of the autonomous districting programs
ignore city integrity, county integrity, other community of interest
boundaries, and geographic features (like mountains and deserts between
communities)? Or has someone written a version that considers those factors
that I have missed?

 

Thanks!

 

*	Doug

 

Douglas Johnson, Ph.D.

Fellow, Rose Institute of State and Local Government

at Claremont McKenna College

douglas.johnson at cmc.edu

direct: 310-200-2058

 

 

 

From: Law-election [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On
Behalf Of Kogan, Vladimir
Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2017 9:43 AM
To: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: [EL] Simulated Districting Plans and Majority-Minority Districts

 

Many thanks to Richard Pildes for bring attention to the amicus brief by
political geographers. I have a question I'm hoping someone might be able to
answer:

 

I'm a big fan of Jowei Chen and Jonathan Rodden's work (and indeed assign
their "unintentional gerrymander" piece), but it seems like the automated
districting approach (and the other two alternatives described in the brief)
produce plans that satisfy only contiguity, compactness, and equal
population requirements, but do not speak to the Voting Rights Act issues.
Drawing a majority-black district can also result in inefficient "packing"
of Democrats, and can potentially explain why a given set of maps is outside
of the range produced by simulations. Is there any automated districting
algorithm out there that specifically incorporates VRA/majority-minority
districts?

 

Thanks!

 

Vlad Kogan

 


Vladimir Kogan, Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science

2004 Derby Hall | 154 N. Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210-1373

510/415-4074 Mobile

614/292-9498 Office

614/292-1146

 <http://u.osu.edu/kogan.18/> http://u.osu.edu/kogan.18/

 <mailto:kogan.18 at osu.edu> kogan.18 at osu.edu 

 

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