However, the algorithm to be used can be chosen as a legislative act
after deliberation and debate. That is better than a few key
legislators negotiating and drawing maps in a back room.
The default algorithm used by such map-drawing software, when it gets
no data on ethnicity, voting history, or incumbency, comes closer to
being fair than trying to draw maps that are "minority opportunity",
whatever that means. The way people are redistributing themselves, that
will soon be impossible by any reasonable standards.
On 02/04/2011 01:39 PM, Justin Levitt wrote:
As Micah
Altman and Michael McDonald have written,
and as I have echoed, computer
algorithms are tools that -- like any tool -- can be used or misused.
It's not hard to write a computer algorithm elegantly designed to
accomplish all kinds of mischief, and then step back and claim that no
"human involvement" has gotten in the way. But somebody had to write
the algorithm, and bound up in that process are the values of the
algorithm's author, which may or may not be widely shared.
-- Jon
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