Adam's Blogroll: click through to the author's blog
Harry Stevens, for The Washington Post, how simulations can be used to detect severely gerrymandered congressional districts. In the interactive, you play the role of concerned citizen with the task of proposing a map that more closely resembles the political leanings of the state as a whole.
Tags: gerrymandering, simulation, Washington Post
Posted by in gerrymandering, Infographics, simulation, Washington Post
Ella Koeze, Denise Lu, and Charlie Smart for The New York Times made a game to help you understand gerrymandering better. They created a fake territory called Hexapolis, and your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to gerrymander your party into power. Good luck.
See also the miniature golf game from The Washington Post. We. Will. Understand. Gerrymandering.
Tags: game, gerrymandering, New York Times
Posted by in game, gerrymandering, Infographics, New York Times
Congressional redistricting and gerrymandering are important topics, because they can directly change election results. However, gerrymandering is called gerrymandering, so it’s too easy to get lost in the details. Well, fret no more. Dylan Moriarty and Joe Fox for The Washington Post made a miniature golf game to teach what’s currently at stake.
It’s a ten-hole course where each putting green is in the shape of a district. The shapes grow more complex as you progress, and the game keeps score for you, so that you can compare your score to par or how other readers performed. It has sound, pretty watercolors, and it’s fun to play.
In the process, the Post tricks you into learning. Win-win.
Tags: game, gerrymandering, golf, redistricting, Washington Post
Posted by in game, gerrymandering, golf, Infographics, redistricting, Washington Post
Gerrymandering continues to be an important thread that I think many people still don’t understand, mostly because it’s called gerrymandering. The Guardian provides a visual guide to explain how creative redistricting can lead to favorable votes.
If you’re still not sure, see also the game District by Christopher Walker which walks you through what gerrymandering is and how it works.
Tags: gerrymandering, Guardian, redistricting
Posted by in gerrymandering, Guardian, Infographics, redistricting
Gerry uses congressional district boundaries as letters. Hahahahaha. Oh wait.
Tags: font, gerrymandering
Posted by in font, gerrymandering, maps
For FiveThirtyEight, William T. Adler and Ella Koeze describe how a metric called partisan bias is used to assess partisan gerrymandering. As you might imagine, it’s fuzzy.
Tags: FiveThirtyEight, gerrymandering
Posted by in FiveThirtyEight, gerrymandering, Statistical Visualization
The change that’s already come to Pennsylvania may not have been possible without the research Kennedy and three other expert witnesses brought to light. They took the stand with a range of analyses, some based in complex quantitative theory, others, like Kennedy’s, based in pure cartography. But they all reached the same conclusion: Pennsylvania’s map had been so aggressively gerrymandered for partisan purposes that it silenced the voices of Democratic voters in the state. Here’s how each came to that conclusion—and managed to convince the court.
This is a great story of visualization and data put to use for a greater good. The analyses solidify the points, and the charts drive them home.
Tags: gerrymandering, Wired
Posted by in gerrymandering, statistics, Wired
FiveThirtyEight asks, “There’s a lot of complaining about gerrymandering, but what should districts look like?” Looking for an answer, they imagined redistricting with different goals in mind, such as gerrymandering favoring Republicans or Democrats, promoting competitive elections, and maximizing majority-minority.
Check out the possibilities for the nation or zoom in to a specific state. The latter provides a further breakdown by district and then race. So yeah, if you’re into this stuff, set aside some time to poke at this one.
Tags: FiveThirtyEight, gerrymandering, government
Posted by in FiveThirtyEight, gerrymandering, government, maps
Alan Blinder and Michael Wines reporting for The New York Times:
A panel of federal judges struck down North Carolina’s congressional map on Tuesday, condemning it as unconstitutional because Republicans had drawn the map seeking a political advantage.
The ruling was the first time that a federal court had blocked a congressional map because of a partisan gerrymander, and it instantly endangered Republican seats in the coming elections.
Go math.
Tags: gerrymandering
Posted by in gerrymandering, statistics
Gerrymandering doesn’t sound like an especially sexy topic, but it’s an important one to pay attention to. District lines are drawn in roundabout ways sometimes to favor a party. This used to be a manual process, but math and computing has made it much easier to sway these days. Olivia Walch explains how math can be used to swing line drawing to a more equal process.
See also the gerrymandering game for another point of view.
Tags: comic, gerrymandering
Posted by in comic, gerrymandering, Infographics