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ieoeja

(9,748 posts)

16. Each district has to have roughly the same population.

Reply to Thinkingabout (Reply #13)

Wed Mar 25, 2015, 02:29 PM

Mar 2015

There is a science to gerrymandering. I'm no expert in it. But I will play one on DU!

Let's say you have 900 voters who must be spread evenly across 3 districts. Each district has 300 voters and requires 151 to win. The demographic makeup of the total is:

200 African-Americans
60 Latinos
200 White Liberals
440 White Conservatives

Split equitably you would have 147, 147 and 146 White Conservatives in each of the 3 districts. Making each district a toss-up. Instead ...

District 1 - guaranteed one Democratic seat
200 AAs
20 Latinos
80 White Liberals

Districts 2 & 3 - guaranteed two Republican seats
20 Latinos
60 White Liberals
220 White Conservatives

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Highlight:

Supreme Court blocks redistricting plan that 'packed' black voters [View all] sinkingfeeling Mar 2015 OP

Link to text of the actual court decision (.pdf) PoliticAverse Mar 2015 #1

Thanks. sinkingfeeling Mar 2015 #2

I look at the district lines drawn in Texas, what a shame the GOP is so vile and dirty to Thinkingabout Mar 2015 #3

"allow correct line to be drawn." - there is no such thing as an objectively 'correct' line. PoliticAverse Mar 2015 #5

There can be ones generated by machine with well-understood and accepted inherent bias. eggplant Mar 2015 #12

If you looked at Texas districts and realize there is a thin line from Houston to Austin Thinkingabout Mar 2015 #13

Each district has to have roughly the same population. ieoeja Mar 2015 #16

The propriety of that's varied over the years. Igel Mar 2015 #20

Anthony Kennedy: America's most powerful unelected person rurallib Mar 2015 #4

He's in charge of the FED? hughee99 Mar 2015 #8

Helped to strip the voting rights act.... daleanime Mar 2015 #15

If I could pick one new constitutional amendment, it would be to outlaw gerrymandering. Nye Bevan Mar 2015 #6

Agree, along with term limits for SCOTUS, campaign finance limits, and more. mountain grammy Mar 2015 #7

A computer algorithm.... AlbertCat Mar 2015 #10

to say we believe in Democracy, that is a must samsingh Mar 2015 #14

This is great news for the Texas redistricting case Gothmog Mar 2015 #9

Packing, Cracking, Stacking. This stuff gets complicated. Xithras Mar 2015 #11

They use outhouses or septic tanks? what city is this? snooper2 Mar 2015 #18

Modesto California Xithras Mar 2015 #19

Gosh, there sure are a lot of these cases. Geoff R. Casavant Mar 2015 #17