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STV America Revived: A Collaborative American Redistricting Project

Introduction
  • Ciclavex

    Baron Ciclavex of Grittysborough in New Sweden
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    Hello, all.

    This is a revival of my previous project, STV America, except that I decided to put it on hold until the census records came in for 2020 so that I would have new data to work with.

    There is no particular alternate history to justify how this came to be, just sort of assume that there have been significant constitutional shifts and yet the population numbers for the 2020 Census are identical, because that makes this easier.

    In the below Spoiler, the number of representatives assigned to each of the fifty-two states in STV America follow, apportioned by means of the Huntington-Hill method in accordance with the Wyoming Rule, with 580 members. That is, the population of the whole United States of America - less unrepresented territories - according to the 2020 Census is divided by the population of the smallest state, that is, Wyoming, with the remainder ignored, along with the increase from the 2020 Apportionment published of late by the Census Bureau for 2020.

    Twenty or More
    • California (69) +17
    • Texas (51) +13
    • Florida (37) +9
    • New York (35) +9
    • Pennsylvania (23) +6
    • Illinois (22) +5
    • Ohio (20) +5
    Thirteen to Nineteen
    • Georgia (19) +5
    • North Carolina (18) +4
    • Michigan (17) +4
    • New Jersey (16) +4
    • Virginia (15) +4
    • Washington (13) +3
    Twelve
    • Arizona +3
    • Indiana +3
    • Massachusetts +3
    • Tennessee +3
    Eleven
    • Maryland +3
    • Missouri +3
    Ten
    • Colorado +2
    • Minnesota +2
    • Wisconsin +2
    Nine
    • Alabama +2
    • South Carolina +2
    Eight
    • Kentucky +2
    • Louisiana +2
    Seven
    • Oklahoma +2
    • Oregon +1
    Six
    • Connecticut +1
    • Iowa +2
    • Puerto Rico +6
    • Utah +2
    Five
    • Arkansas +1
    • Kansas +1
    • Mississippi +1
    • Nevada +1
    Four
    • New Mexico +1
    Three
    • Hawai'i +1
    • Idaho +1
    • Nebraska +0
    • West Virginia +1
    Two
    • Delaware +1
    • Maine +0
    • Montana +0
    • New Hampshire +0
    • Rhode Island +0
    • South Dakota +1
    One
    • Alaska +0
    • Douglass Commonwealth +1
    • North Dakota +0
    • Vermont +0
    • Wyoming +0

    Via the Huntington-Hill method, the last state to be assigned a representative was Texas, which received its fifty-first representative as the 580th representative assigned. The next state that would have been assigned a representative is Michigan, which narrowly missed out on its eighteenth representative. If the House of Representatives had been 590 members, the next nine states to receive representatives after Michigan would have been Ohio, Arizona, Florida, Washington, Illinois, New York, California, Nevada and Nebraska, in that order.

    This having been the apportionment, we now go to STV redistricting. I haven't done the new map-drawing yet, but the principles of districting in STV America will be as follows:

    1. Multi-member districts should have no fewer than three members. Three is barely large enough for an STV district within predominantly two-party system, with any smaller just becoming an awful lot of districts just ending up being a Democrat and a Republican regardless of the numbers involved, which is not exactly proportional. Where a single state cannot earn three representatives, the state will instead be drawn into single-member districts, under which STV becomes identical to IRV.
    2. Multi-member districts should have no more than seven members. Though some countries have districts larger than seven, at a certain point the benefit of STV still having constituencies starts to vanish and it loses this advantage over a straight proportional list system in a real way. While this number may or may not be arbitrary on my part, I think that it's as fair a ceiling as any to draw.
    3. All districts must follow county lines, as an extremely firm principle, to avoid gerrymandering. Existing county lines will be followed at all times. The only exception to this principle will be if a single county would account for more than seven representatives. If so, that county will be subdivided by local government boundaries, avoiding any instance whatsoever of a district division crossing county lines.
    4. As best as possible, districts will follow existing population patterns and centers as determined by the Census -- though, as a great deal of this data isn't out yet due to the delays caused by COVID-19, for the most part they will be following population patterns seen in the 2010 Census, which to the best of my knowledge has not changed.
    I am of course open to any suggestions, comments or alternative thoughts within the spirit of this idea, and I do welcome participation from other members if they want to either claim states or make alternative proposals for states already posted by myself or someone else; I don't intend this to be a closed writing project.

    Following the above principles, the following states require no districting at all, as under these principles these states may consist of a single at-large STV district: Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Douglass Commonwealth, Hawai'i, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.

    That leaves everything else wide open.

    Given that I know it best, I'm going to start out by claiming Pennsylvania and doing a district map for the state. Please, post here if you're interested in participating, whether drawing maps or anything else that may be associated with the project, or, again, if you have any comments, suggestions, questions regarding my methodology for the apportionment, etc.

    EDIT

    Claims:

    @Makemakean -- Texas (alternative)

    Completed States:

    @Caprice -- Delaware, Illinois
    @Ciclavex -- New Jersey, Pennsylvania
    @cikka -- Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire
    @rpryor03 — Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Wisconsin
    @Stuyvesant -- New York
    @Visigoethe -- Maryland
    @Wolfram — Texas
    @zaffre -- Massachusetts
     
    Last edited:
    Pennsylvania -- @Ciclavex
  • PA STV.png

    Key:
    Central & Northwestern Pennsylvania (3) - Green
    Delaware Valley (5) - Blue
    Greater Pittsburgh (5) - Pink
    Lancaster & Schuylkill Valley (4) - Red
    Lehigh & Wyoming Valleys (3) - Light Purple
    Susquehanna Valley (3) - Gold
     
    Texas — @Wolfram
  • Screen Shot 2021-04-28 at 8.12.48 PM.png
    Pink: Red River and Panhandle [3]
    Lime: Permian Basin and Trans-Pecos [3]
    Cyan: Fort Worth and Denton [5]
    Light blue: Dallas and Eastern Metroplex [7]
    Tan: Northern Piney Woods [3]
    Teal: Central Texas [7]
    Red: Rio Grande Valley [7]
    Yellow: Matagorda Bay [3]
    Purple: Southern Piney Woods [5]
    Green: West Houston [3]
    Blue: Central and East Houston [5]
     
    Massachusetts -- @zaffre
  • 1619729235591.png

    Interestingly, what with the district size and variance requirements, and the fact that they have to adhere to county borders and (implied) be contiguous, there are really only two possible maps for this. Everything west of Worcester County is too small for a 3 member district, as is everything south of Norfolk County, so those have to be glommed together, and then Mass. South is sitting at ~3.5 members and needs more stuff added, and with a theoretical Suffolk-Essex being too small for a district, practically speaking you have to stick Suffolk County on.

    Even with all that, this ends up fairly high on the population variance scale, with Massachusetts North having 8.3% more people-per-rep than Massachusetts West, which is why I will briefly mention the one other possible arrangement (with a variance of 2.4%) which would be condensing a giant Massachusetts North-West district with seven members - not a terrible solution, but I'm not really convinced that the decrease in variance outweighs how geographically vacuous this hypothetical Mass. NW is.
     
    Ohio -- @rpryor03
  • map-image (1).png

    All Seats elect 4 representatives. (Current Senators and Reps in seat listed in parentheses)
    Blue: Toledo-Northwest Ohio (Latta, Kaptur)
    Green: Cleveland-Akron (VACANT 11, Joyce, Gonzalez, Brown)
    Purple: Appalachian Ohio (Johnson, Gibbs, Balderson, Ryan)
    Red: Columbus-Springfield-Lancaster (Beatty, Jordan, Stivers)
    Yellow: Cincinnati-Dayton (Chabot, Wenstrup, Davidson, Turner, Portman)
     
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