Redistricting by Formula: An Ohio Reform Experiment
28 Pages Posted: 15 Jun 2014
Date Written: June 3, 2014
Abstract
We analyze sixty-six Ohio congressional plans produced during the post-2010 census redistricting by the legislature and the public. The public drew many plans submitted for judging in a competition hosted by reform advocates, who awarded a prize to the plan that scored best on a formula composed of four permissive components: compactness, respect for local political boundaries, partisan fairness, and competition. We evaluate how the legislature’s adopted plan compares to these plans on the advocates’ criteria and our alternative set of criteria, which reveals the degree by which the legislature placed partisanship over these other criteria. Our evaluation reveals minimal trade-offs among the components of the overall competition’s scoring criteria, but we caution that the scoring formula may be sensitive to implementation choices among its components. Compared to the legislature’s plan, the reform community can get more of the four criteria they value; importantly, without sacrificing the state’s only African-American opportunity congressional district.
Keywords: crowdsourcing; redistricting; elections; transparency; participation; GIS
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