A total of 37 states impose compactness requirements on state legislative districts; 18 states impose similar requirements for congressional districts. While there are different measures of compactness, compact districts would not have the ugly and peculiar shapes that current districts have that are drawn to serve the purposes of incumbents and political parties. Auto-Redistrict is a free and open source computer program that automatically creates fair and compact electoral districts. Some of these include Iowa's measuring the perimeter of districts (Iowa Code §42.4(4), 2007), Maine's minimizing travel time within a district (Maine Statute §1206-A, 2013), and Idaho's avoiding drawing districts which are oddly shaped District Reg 2-Way Final Congressional Districts - Approved 1/17/12 - Compactness and Competitiveness Measures Competitiveness Index 6 Competitiveness Index 7 Competitiveness Index 8 Competitiveness Index 9 All Registration District Compactness Competitiveness Index 2 Competitiveness Index 3 Competitiveness Index 4 Competitiveness Index 5. Compactness Compactness To deter gerrymandering, many state constitutions require legislative districts to be "compact.'' Yet, the law offers few precise definitions other than "you know it when you see it,'' which effectively implies a common understanding of the concept. Any compactness measure that satisfies three desirable properties (anonymity of voters, efficient clustering, and invariance to scale, population density, and number of districts) ranks districting plans identically to our index. Uploaded: Mon, Apr 4, 2022, 8:51 pm. Boundary Analysis. Compactness. Transcribed image text: There are three rules for drawing congressional districts within states. It's meant to prevent protrusions that would isolate some residents of a district. See also: Survey Research, Legislative Redistricting Last updated on 07/31/2021 Compactness. "We have submitted an alternative proposal, which we can support, that adheres to federal and state requirements and addresses our legal concerns, while working to increase district compactness . To make matters worse, this word compactness can be found in legal codes, where some states say that districts must be "(reasonably) compact" but don't give any suggestions for how to measure the compactness of a district. Districts with higher ratios are said to be less compact. Compactness looks at how close together all parts of a district are. It's meant to prevent protrusions that would isolate some residents of the district. -"districts shall be compact in form…" -"districts shall consist of compact territory…" -Some states, such as Iowa have specific tests REDISTRICTING COMPACTNESS zDevelopment of Compactness in FederalDevelopment of Compactness in Federal Apportionment Statutes: -No standards for CD's until 1842 ographic compactness constraints, and political power. Measuring the degree of mix is therefore an important descriptor of urban compactness (Storch and Eckert 2007). As the name indicates, it is viewed as a good measure of the dispersion of the area of a district. DOI 10.3386/w13456. Merriam-Webster defines compactness as "closely and neatly packed together; dense." A circle is perfectly compact. The compactness of a district -- a measure of how irregular its shape is, as determined by the ratio of the area of the district to the area of a circle with the same perimeter -- can serve as a . The districts are colored according to their compactness, which is a term that comes up a lot in gerrymandering discussions. Compactness. by Jeanita Lyman / Pleasanton Weekly. An additional criterion frequently used in PD is the respect of existing administrative subdivisions of the territory (also known . Assigned District Splits. This suggests that the important information is captured in a plot of cumulative variance. Any compactness measure that satisfies three desirable properties (anonymity of voters, efficient clustering, and invariance to scale, population density, and number of districts) ranks districting plans identically to our index. Compactness. Principle of the highest minimum. Striving for the geographic compactness of electoral districts is a traditional principle of redistricting (Altman, 1998), and, to that end, many jurisdictions have included the criterion of compactness in their legal code for drawing districts. Instead, they have more ordinary shapes similar to rectangles and circles. The United States Supreme Court has long recognized compactness as an important principle in assessing the constitutionality of political districting plans. I chose to keep these whole, as school districts are recognizable communities of interest. The affected districts are 20, 22, 23, 27, 29 and 40. In most cases, the gold standard for a district's shape is a circle. Draw a free-hand line on the map. Draw a free-hand polygon on the map. Gerrymandering and Compactness: Implementation Flexibility and Abuse. A box is compact. Section 3 presents the Given a bounding box for a district (the rectangle which surrounds a district, with top and bottom parallel to the equator and sides orthogonal to the equator), the width ( W) is defined as the shorter side of that box and the length ( L) as the longer side of that box. CiteSeerX - Document Details (Isaac Councill, Lee Giles, Pradeep Teregowda): The United States Supreme Court has long recognized compactness as an important principle in assessing the constitutionality of political districting plans. On a scale of 0 to 1, where 1 equals maximum compactness, the final Senate map has a Reock score of 0.39 and a Polsby-Popper score of 0.33. Reports. misshapen districts so long as they meander within a confined area, as in Figure 5. Compactness - Compactness refers to the shape of the district. Compactness looks at how close together all parts of a district are. Winner of the 2018 Robert H Durr Award from the MPSA. compact districts would have a statistically significant effect on voting outcomes, making election outcomes more responsive to actual votes. This comment is in relation to the LRC proposed map as it relates to Luzerne County. Compactness Districts are meant to be compact, meaning as closely and neatly packed together as possible. Dev. In Section 6, a few compactness measures are considered and we Virginia Supreme Court Weighs 'Compactness' of Election Districts. It describes . Compactness—Each district should be compact, that is, closely and neatly packed together (Oxford Dictionary). Polsby-Popper and Schwartzberg measure the indentation of the district, while Area/Convex Hull and Reock measure the dispersion of the district. Draw an arrow on the map. Auto-Redistrict uses a genetic algorithm to design districts that meet multiple criteria, namely: Geometry. The structure of the paper is as follows. Compactness looks at how close together all parts of a district are. How the maps compare on district competitiveness, minority makeup, respect for local borders, compactness and the efficiency gap, an attempt to gauge how politically gerrymandered a set of districts is Simply open a shapefile, load in census and election data (if not already included in the shapefile), and hit "Go". One measure of irregularity surrounding districts is known as compactness. Compactness: District shapes should be "reasonable" Boundary preservation : District lines should follow natural and official boundaries, such as rivers or town and county borders For a slightly more detailed discussion, here's a handout . Furthermore, the test is not only a measure of compactness, it is a measure of size as well. The Polsby-Popper ratio, generally the most widely cited metric, and Schwartzberg ratio measure. [7] [8] A community of interest is defined by FairVote as a "group of people in a geographical area, such as a specific region or neighborhood, who have common political, social or economic . Final Legislative Districts - Approved 1/17/12 - Compactness and Competitiveness Measures District Compactness Competitiveness Index 2 Competitiveness Index 3 Competitiveness Index 4 Competitiveness Index 5 It's meant to prevent protrusions that would isolate some residents of a district. Compactness by District When you click on the "Advanced" command in DRA 2020, a section shows you district-by-district compactness measurements. Viewing compactness tests. However, there is no standard baseline of compactness, and neither the Pennsylvania Constitution nor the state Supreme Court has set a . New BART districts will shift portion of San Ramon. Metes and Bounds. Brad Kutner / March 1, 2018. There are a number of data quality checks contained in Esri Redistricting that allow you to measure whether a district plan adheres to certain standards. In particular, we study the impact of a compactness requirement. Compactness Almost as often as state law asks districts to follow political boundaries, it asks that districts be "compact." By constitution or statute, 32 states require their legislative districts to be reasonably compact; 17 states require congressional districts to be compact as well. Although there are statistical methods for calculating a district's compactness, many commentators have suggested that courts will more frequently use the "eyeball test" to determine if a district's shape raises compactness issues. We compared the compactness of districts in states with partisan redistricting control to the compactness of districts in states with non-partisan redistricting methods (excluding the seven states with only one district) and found that if the redistricting is controlled by one party, the districts are more gerrymandered as defined by this . They are compactness within districts, contiguous borders among districts, and a near equal number of constituents within each district, compactness within districts, continuous borders among districts, and a new equal number of constituents within each district compactness within districts . While contiguity is easily discernible, a single accepted measure of district compactness . Compactness Districts are meant to be compact, meaning as closely and neatly packed together as possible. Districts are meant to be compact, meaning as closely and neatly packed together as possible. Compactness. Compactness Districts are meant to be compact, meaning as closely and neatly packed together as possible. Districts are meant to be compact, meaning as closely and neatly packed together as possible. This is intended to minimize any protrusions that would be isolated from the rest of the. 2002). Districts are meant to be compact, meaning as closely and neatly packed together as possible. We also offer compactness data from our validated measure for 20,160 state legislative and congressional districts, as well as open source software to compute this measure from any district. Changes to each are described below. As we move into the 1990s, compactness of legislative districts is likely to take on greater importance because of its relevance to questions of racial and partisan discrimination. When drawing districts to represent a region, it is best practice to strive for a compact district, since non-compact districts are less likely to share communities of interests (2010's Executive Council & some 2020 NH The Azavea analysis evaluates geographic compactness of each district using four different formulas. Draw text on the map. This approach, however, is flawed. Any compactness measure which satisfies three desirable properties (anonymity of voters, efficient clustering, and invariance to . The Pennsylvania Constitution mandates that districts be compact, but it does not specify a metric or minimum threshold to measure districts. included the criterion of compactness in their legal code for drawing districts. This is intended to minimize any protrusions that would be isolated from the rest of the district. Compactness looks at how close together all parts of a district are. Our algo-rithm allows us to examine possible requirements that have been suggested as a means to mitigate or eliminate gerrymandering. RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- The Raleigh city council member who cast the lone vote opposing a new district map at Tuesday's council meeting is calling the adopted plan, which affects who voters vote . The most compact districts form either a circle, square, or a hexagon. There are a number of ways to measure compactness, but two of the most widely used are a district's perimeter complexity and its dispersion around its center. When you click on the "Analytics" command in DRA 2020, the "Compactness" section helps you understand the degree to which the districts in your map are geometrically compact . This is intended to minimize any protrusions that would be isolated from the rest of the district. Furthermore, the test is not only a measure of compactness, it is a measure of size as well. In our most recent white papers on the topic, we used four commonly cited metrics for calculating compactness of legislative districts. Thus the test discriminates . As a proud resident of Luzerne County, I believe it is important to have districts that best align with the principles of fairness and compactness set forth in the Pennsylvania State Constitution. Download File (Proposed Luzerne County Increased Compactness (1).zip). For example, a large rural district will necessarily have a worse measure of compactness than a small urban district of the same shape. Draw a polygon on the map. Compactness is having the minimum distance between all the parts of a constituency. Compactness intuitively refers to both how close a legislative district's boundaries are to its geographic center and how "regular" in shape a district appears to be. Lawyers for the Commonwealth of Virginia appeared before the state Supreme Court Thursday arguing that legislators are legally allowed to create electoral district maps -- even if the districts are not as compact as critics would hope. For decades, legislative districts have been drawn with two general mandates, contiguity and compactness. Length-Width compactness compares the width and the length of a district. If the state had a different number of congressional districts than the previous cycle, a random partition was created and then optimized to pass the backsliding test and to have a reasonable number of cut edges (compactness) and county splits relative to the last court-accepted plan. It's what Trudeau alluded to in his remarks — oddly shaped districts are often, but not always, a sign that gerrymandering shenanigans are afoot. Another widely used compactness measure is the ratio of the area of a district to the area of a circle with the same perimeter as the district (the Polsby-Popper or Perimeter measure): Polsby-Popper or Perimeter Measure (Also called Minority Coalition District) Community of Interest - A neighborhood, community, or group of people who have common policy concerns and would benefit from being maintained in a single district. Compactness refers to the principle that the constituents residing within an electoral district should live as near to one another as possible Compactness can be measured as a ratio of the circumference of a district and its total area. misshapen districts so long as they meander within a confined area, as in Figure 5. This is intended to minimize any protrusions that would be isolated from the rest of the district. Compactness. Contiguity and equal population are relatively easy to determine, by looking at the proposed maps and the population data, respectively, compactness is . Districts are meant to be compact, meaning as closely and neatly packed together as possible. Compactness: District shapes should be "reasonable" Boundary preservation : District lines should follow natural and official boundaries, such as rivers or town and county borders For a slightly more detailed discussion, here's a handout . 0.14 District Polsby-Popper GI-FRA 0.21 LAM-2 0.32 LAM-3 0.43 Thus, a round-shaped district is deemed to be accept- able, while an octopus- or an eel-like one is not. This is intended to minimize any protrusions that would be isolated from the rest of the . Thus the test discriminates . Compactness. Compactness of a district; Contiguity of districts, and; Communities of interests; If you would like more information on redistricting in New Mexico, go to the 2011 New Mexico Redistricting website to find a variety of information related to redrawing legislative and congressional district boundaries and other redistricting resources. For this reason, quantifying the shape of districts, in particular their compactness, is a key task in politics and civil rights. Some San Ramon voters in the southern parts of the city will see a shift in their rail transit district in the . Compactness Kentucky Senate: Abstract: The basic redistricting problem is defined as aggregating a set of base (indivisible) units into contiguous geographical areas with almost equal voter population, called districts, and districts into a district plan. We show that at least two distinct components of shape--dispersion and perimeter length--are necessary elements of any reasonable compactness measure and that compactness may be based on geography or on population . The Pennsylvania Constitution mandates that districts be compact, but it does not specify a metric or minimum threshold to measure districts. Compactness - Compactness helps us measure the cohesiveness of a district. Geographic compactness: Compactness refers to the shape of a district and although there are several highly technical measures of compactness, the term generally refers to how irregular the shape of a district is. maximally compact districts are power diagrams and that the line separating two adjacent districts are perpendicular to the line connecting their centroids, and all such lines separating three adjacent districts meet at a single point. This is intended to minimize any protrusions that would be isolated from the rest of the . We propose a measure of compactness based on the distance between voters within the same district relative to the minimum distance achievable - which we coin . 112 Practical application of district compactness 2. District Compactness. Draw a line on the map. Draw a point on the map. Nearby, see the proposed Illinois House districts for northeastern Illinois. Compactness. Measures of Compactness Report 2020 House JA FINAL 11-24-2 Polsby-Popper Sum N/A Min 0.14 Max 0.77 Mean 0.47 Std. The shape of an electoral district may suggest whether it was drawn with political motivations, or gerrymandered. Title: We propose a measure of compactness based on the distance between voters within the same district relative to the minimum distance achievable . One of the most popular measures of compactness is called the Polsby-Popper score. 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