Gerrymandering Is Illegal, But Only Mathematicians Can Prove It

[HAB911]

Partisan gerrymandering—the practice of drawing voting districts to give one political party an unfair edge—is one of the few political issues that voters of all stripes find common cause in condemning. Voters should choose their elected officials, the thinking goes, rather than elected officials choosing their voters. The Supreme Court agrees, at least in theory: In 1986 it ruled that partisan gerrymandering, if extreme enough, is unconstitutional.

Yet in that same ruling, the court declined to strike down two Indiana maps under consideration, even though both “used every trick in the book,” according to a paper in the University of Chicago Law Review. And in the decades since then, the court has failed to throw out a single map as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.

“If you’re never going to declare a partisan gerrymander, what is it that’s unconstitutional?” said Wendy K. Tam Cho, a political scientist and statistician at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

The problem is that there is no such thing as a perfect map—every map will have some partisan effect. So how much is too much? In 2004, in a ruling that rejected nearly every available test for partisan gerrymandering, the Supreme Court called this an “unanswerable question.” Meanwhile, as the court wrestles with this issue, maps are growing increasingly biased, many experts say.

https://www.wired.com/2017/04/gerrymandering-illegal-mathematicians-can-prove/?mbid=nl_41617_p2&CNDID=30772003

[Gothmog]

1. Here is a good explanation of the Efficiency Gap theory

[FBaggins]

2. Gerrymandering isn't illegal

Nor did the Supreme Court rule that it was illegal in David v. Bandemer.

What they ruled was that the issue was "justiciable" - which just means that the courts aren't prohibited from hearing such cases on the claim that they were legislative/executive functions and closed to the judiciary on separation of powers grounds.

[TheBlackAdder]

3. Dems/Reps in NJ met and divvied up the state to cut costs, disenfranchising minority party voters.

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About 5 years ago, both parties met and agreed to divvy up the state to create permanent Republican and Democratic Party districts. They did this to cut the costs of state office campaigning, since there will be no real competition from the opposing side. This effectively disenfranchises all minority party voters in the districts and creates permanent safe zones for politicians.


We've just had a carpetbagger Republican millionaire relocate from North NJ to Burlington County to steal an election away from a solid candidate that would have been a Democrat who actually stood a chance to win a congressional seat, as the Republican district previously fielded a really weak candidate.


Of course, the Democrats came up short on the deal to carve up the state and were outmaneuvered.


It should be illegal to do this, and all districts should be 50/50 balanced to let the cards play out as dealt.


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