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So back to the original post:  I had some more time to read through the presented paper, and it really is an interesting approach.

It starts off with some definitions of mathematical fairness, which interesting enough is *not* a partitioning of a plurality of districts so that both Democrats and Republicans are evenly represented.  Instead they define a set of all possible partitions of a district that conform to certain rules:  among them 'compactness', 'continuity', and 'equal population'.  The set of possible partitions of the districts of the average state is staggering:  the average number calculated was over 1080, which is commensurate with the number of atoms in the observable universe (!).

Instead of equal representation, the authors propose using a supercomputer cluster to test a large number of random samplings of a set of districts within a state, and calculate what the vote shares would be using those partitions.  The average number tested was around 100 million, and the idea is that they want to converge on the average number of representatives split between the two parties.  The current NC split (based on the GOP drawn map) is 3 democratic districts, and 10 Republican, despite the fact that on a state-wide basis, the vote share of Republicans is approximately 53% versus 47% for the Democrats (this is estimated, since the 9th district didn't have votes counted).

What they found was that of the 100 million tested district partitions, 2 standard deviations of seat shares yielded a mean 61% district share for the GOP and 39% for the Democrats, meaning that of the 13 districts in NC,  in the average case 8 should be GOP seats and 5 should be Democratic, with a certainty of about 90%.  Obviously this is far from the current situation.  The average number of wasted votes was less than 4%, which matches the efficiency gap calculations proposed before the Supreme Court several years ago.

The really interesting result is that some argue that the seat share should be proportional to the vote share, which in NC is roughly evenly split.  However due to the population and their proximity to the big cities (and the relatively sparse population areas between Ashville and Charlotte ), the only way to get equal district splits between the GOP and the Dems is to violate compactness rules in favor of the Dems (essentially, it would be to partially gerrymander in favor of the Dems).  Hence an equal 7-6 split really isn't possible in NC, however the most probable fair split is 8 GOP and 5 Dem.
 
Districts, schmistricts.

When the math is that complex it’s a sign it’s not the most elegant solution.

Why not take everyone’s vote regardless of location, and give people 1st, 2nd, 3rd choice ballots.

Then the will of the people is served. Not the desires of corrupt politicians who have a field day hiding behind complexity.

Take the tax code for example...
 
Phrazemaster said:
Districts, schmistricts.

When the math is that complex it’s a sign it’s not the most elegant solution.

Why not take everyone’s vote regardless of location, and give people 1st, 2nd, 3rd choice ballots.

Then the will of the people is served. Not the desires of corrupt politicians who have a field day hiding behind complexity.
I believe this has already been discussed here and was being experimented with in Maine... (this is how we perform such experiments at the state/local level). If successful we can roll them out wider.

I asked our forum Maine resident for his impression and no response.
Take the tax code for example...
No you take it...  ;D

JR
 
Phrazemaster said:
Districts, schmistricts.

When the math is that complex it’s a sign it’s not the most elegant solution.

Why not take everyone’s vote regardless of location, and give people 1st, 2nd, 3rd choice ballots.

Then the will of the people is served. Not the desires of corrupt politicians who have a field day hiding behind complexity.

Take the tax code for example...
Because that's not what Article 2 and the 14th amendment require.  I think the intention is that you get a representative for the area you live in/near, who should (in theory) best represent your local and unique interests.  Voting 'regardless of location' goes against this.  However it's debatable that 'local representation' is the outcome of course. 

The math is related to how district boundaries are drawn, not whether or not they make sense in the first place.  Ranked choice voting is another good choice since it means votes for a losing candidate can never be wasted, however ranked choice is a whole other topic.
 
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