You Can Draw Ohio's Congressional Districts
Any person can sign up, free of charge, to take part in the Ohio Redistricting Competition. Participants will receive training on ArcGIS and the redistricting add-on, as well as free web access to the software. Participants will redraw the 2001 district maps for Ohio’s delegates to the US Congress, with the submitted maps scored based on an objective formula for compactness, competitiveness, preservation of communities and representational fairness. The winning districts maps will be announced in early May.
Here’s the website (hat tip to Doug Hess). Unfortunately, your districts may not actually become law:
The goal of the Ohio Redistricting Competition is to demonstrate that an open process based on objective criteria can produce fair legislative districts in Ohio.
Related: For a little counterintuition, here is Justin Buchler’s article on the case against competitive congressional districts.
Comments
If “representational fairness” had some objectively ascertainable meaning, a bunch of theorists would be out of work.
Posted by: Joel | April 7, 2009 08:58 PM
Am I the only person who thinks it would be fun to sponsor a counter-competition awarding prizes for the most comically unfair map?
Posted by: Paul Gowder | April 7, 2009 09:11 PM
Or perhaps draw districts to look like animals or clowns. They’d probably be more ‘fair’ than many districts we have today. And who wouldn’t want to be from a district shaped like a cute puppy?
Posted by: Ben Clark | April 8, 2009 10:31 AM
@Joel
‘representational fairness’ can be defined as the minimum achieveable StdDev of the population per representative….
Posted by: Arthur | April 8, 2009 12:17 PM
Giving BUCHLER a shout-out?
Have you no shame, John?
Posted by: Matt Jarvis | April 8, 2009 12:54 PM
Hi Arthur,
Sure, but: 1) standard deviation of what, and (2) who gets to decide the answer to (1)?
Ultimately, I know that there is practical meaning assigned to the term, but I was simply suggesting that whatever meaning has been assigned for the purposes of redistricting reform and the literature is not the only defensible meaning (if it even is that). Perhaps this is so obvious as not to have warranted mention …
Posted by: Joel | April 8, 2009 02:12 PM
This is great. I hope this gets some coverage in the popular media. It could start a good open conversation about the process, which we don’t have now.
Posted by: Eric | April 8, 2009 09:16 PM