Redistricting to encourage purple districts

 

A friend of mine suggested using AI to draw political districts with the following parameters:

1. Population difference between districts, largest to smallest, <5%
2. Contiguous districts
3. Districts should respect political boundaries, cities, counties.
4. Districts should respect physical boundaries, rivers, etc.
5. Districts should be as compact as possible.
6. Re-districting be limited to 10 year intervals.

I suggested a 7^th parameter: “Favor creating districts in which neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have more than 55% of the registered voters.”

Why might we want to do that?  Before listing the reasons, I’d like to stress that the districts would still adhere to the other rules.  This might simply stretch a district to the [east] instead of to the [north].

1. According to 2026 analysis from FairVote and the Cook Political Report, 81% to 85% of our 435 U.S. House districts are considered "safe" for one party.  This has developed due to one-party gerrymanders, to the parties agreeing to create safe districts for each other, and to housing patterns.
2. In safe districts, the election is determined in the primary.  Extremists are more likely than moderates to vote in primaries.  When primary voters can be confident that whoever they nominate will be elected, they can satisfy their extremist preferences.  So, extremists are nominated in the dominant party’s primary, then are elected because it is a “safe” district.
3. Members of the minority party justifiably feel disenfranchised.  They have no chance of winning and don’t even have any moderating influence.
4. Moderates of the majority party, whether they participated in the primary or not may feel disenfranchised, even though they had a shot at influencing the election in the primary.
5. The process encourages political disengagement by members of minority parties and perhaps independents and moderates of the dominant party.
6. There is little penalty or discipline for incumbents who perform their job in extremely partisan fashion.  With purple jurisdictions, a weak incumbent is much more likely to be replaced.
7. The advantage of incumbents is enhanced with safe districts.  Thus, safe districts increase the average age of political representatives.  Generally, that creates risks due to declining health and capabilities.  It generally reduces legislative familiarity with current technology, etc.  And it underrepresents young people.
8. Generally, it is very good from us to hear from each other.  For example, rural and city areas are not islands; we are interdependent.  Thus, it can be helpful to have a mix of rural and urban in a district.

I admit that if all districts had the same percentage distribution, each district would have a majority of the dominant party.  Hence Congress could theoretically have 100% of its members from the dominant party.  Similarly, the 14% Black voters could have no Black representative.  I don’t think we vote so arbitrarily, hope that we won’t do so, and believe strongly that we should educate to undermine such “identity” voting.  Other steps could be taken to address such issues, but I those are separate topics.