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Jackpine Radical

(45,274 posts) Sat Nov 17, 2012, 03:43 PM Nov 2012

The Wisconsin Gerrymander Effect

I just put together a spreadsheet analyzing the outcome of the Wisconsin House races.

Very interesting--the Republicans managed to capture 5 of the 8 WI House seats (62.5%) with 49% of the vote. I haven't yet looked at other results, such as the Assembly races, but I think I have come up with an interesting statistic--the Gerrymander Ratio, which is the ratio of seats captured divided by the popular vote ratio. An ideal result would be 1.00, which would indicate that each person's vote counts equally in electing the representative of their choice. In this case, the Gerrymander Ratio is about 1.27, essentially meaning that the Gerrymandering caused each Republican vote to be worth 1.27 Democratic votes.

Whaddya all think of this approach to analyzing the issue?

8 replies

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The Wisconsin Gerrymander Effect (Original Post) Jackpine Radical Nov 2012 OP

It's flawed. A 1.0 ratio wouldn't necessarily indicate that "each person's vote would count equally". PoliticAverse Nov 2012 #1

I see it as carving as many r's as possible into sensenbrenner's district HereSince1628 Nov 2012 #4

They basically shoved as many Dem votes as humanly possible into Pocan and Moore's.... yourout Nov 2012 #2

Exactly. Jackpine Radical Nov 2012 #7

Interesting. First time I've seen it looked at quite that way for WI. HereSince1628 Nov 2012 #3

So sad. hrmjustin Nov 2012 #5

In comparison to NC they were pikers dsc Nov 2012 #6

I'd say that's the most interesting analysis of the Gerrymandering effect yet. rgbecker Nov 2012 #8

PoliticAverse

(26,366 posts)

1. It's flawed. A 1.0 ratio wouldn't necessarily indicate that "each person's vote would count equally".

Reply to Jackpine Radical (Original post)

Sat Nov 17, 2012, 03:58 PM

Nov 2012

Individual candidates of the same party aren't fungible so you can't really add the vote totals for individual candidates
to produce a meaningful vote total.

To demonstrate with an extreme example, what do you do with the case where in a district the incumbent isn't even opposed by a candidate of
the opposing party ?

Gerrymandering is a very complicated issue and can't be quantified by a single number.

HereSince1628

(36,063 posts)

4. I see it as carving as many r's as possible into sensenbrenner's district

Reply to PoliticAverse (Reply #1)

Sat Nov 17, 2012, 04:13 PM

Nov 2012

yourout

(7,533 posts)

2. They basically shoved as many Dem votes as humanly possible into Pocan and Moore's....

Reply to Jackpine Radical (Original post)

Sat Nov 17, 2012, 03:59 PM

Nov 2012

district.

Along with Kind.

Jackpine Radical

(45,274 posts)

7. Exactly.

Reply to yourout (Reply #2)

Sat Nov 17, 2012, 05:59 PM

Nov 2012

My geographic region, just north of Eau Claire, got pushed into Kind's district. It used to be the leftist leavening of Dist. 7, which was Dave Obey's old district.

HereSince1628

(36,063 posts)

3. Interesting. First time I've seen it looked at quite that way for WI.

Reply to Jackpine Radical (Original post)

Sat Nov 17, 2012, 04:07 PM

Nov 2012

Usually I just look for lopsided competitiveness as an indicator that the districts are skewered

hrmjustin

(71,265 posts)

5. So sad.

Reply to Jackpine Radical (Original post)

Sat Nov 17, 2012, 04:32 PM

Nov 2012

dsc

(52,166 posts)

6. In comparison to NC they were pikers

Reply to Jackpine Radical (Original post)

Sat Nov 17, 2012, 04:42 PM

Nov 2012

Here we got a bit over 50% of the vote and only 4 seats to the GOP's 9.

rgbecker

(4,834 posts)

8. I'd say that's the most interesting analysis of the Gerrymandering effect yet.

Reply to Jackpine Radical (Original post)

Sat Nov 17, 2012, 06:18 PM

Nov 2012

Thanks for this. Great way of scoring this most undemocratic practice. Will the American people wake up to this and of course the crazy possibility of the Senate being controled by 13% of the electorate because if the 20 least populated states form a filibustering coalition they can stop most anything that comes down the pike.

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