A Spatiotemporal Compactness Pattern Analysis of Congressional Districts to Assess Partisan Gerrymandering: A Case Study with California and North Carolina.
Compactness of a congressional district is a traditional principle in adjudicating gerrymandering claims in political redistricting. During the last decade, many states have used compactness as an important criterion to constrain the presence of gerrymandering in the redistricting process. In this s...
| Published in: | Annals of the Association of American Geographers Vol. 105; no. 4; pp. 736 - 754 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Article |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Jul2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=108443288&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 108443288 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00045608 AAG jtl: Annals of the Association of American Geographers issn: 00045608 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Jul2015 vid: 105 iid: 4 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 108443288 10.1080/00045608.2015.1039109 ppf: 736 ppct: 18 formats: tig: atl: A Spatiotemporal Compactness Pattern Analysis of Congressional Districts to Assess Partisan Gerrymandering: A Case Study with California and North Carolina. aug: au: Fan, Chao Li, Wenwen Wolf, Levi J. Myint, Soe W. affil: GeoDa Center for Geospatial Analysis and Computation, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University su: California North Carolina Spatiotemporal processes Gerrymandering Spacetime sug: subj: California North Carolina Spatiotemporal processes Gerrymandering Spacetime keyword: análisis de patrones análisis espacio-tiempo compacidad compactness distribución de la población moment of inertia momento de inercia pattern analysis political redistricting population distribution rezonificación política space–time analysis space–time analysis análisis de patrones análisis espacio-tiempo análisis de patrones análisis espacio-tiempo compacidad distribución de la población distribución de la población momento de inercia rezonificación política rezonificación política análisis de patrones análisis espacio-tiempo compacidad compactness distribución de la población moment of inertia momento de inercia pattern analysis political redistricting population distribution rezonificación política space–time analysis space–time analysis análisis de patrones análisis espacio-tiempo análisis de patrones análisis espacio-tiempo compacidad distribución de la población distribución de la población momento de inercia rezonificación política rezonificación política ab: Compactness of a congressional district is a traditional principle in adjudicating gerrymandering claims in political redistricting. During the last decade, many states have used compactness as an important criterion to constrain the presence of gerrymandering in the redistricting process. In this study, we conducted an array of spatiotemporal analyses aiming to evaluate the changes in compactness between the 112th and 113th Congressional districting plans in California and North Carolina, two states that have been well known for their heavy gerrymandering for years. We employed classic shape-based compactness measures, moment-of-inertia-based measures, and measures of partisan bias to assess the districting plans from multiple angles, including irregularity of district boundaries, spatial dispersion, population-weighted shape dispersion, and partisan symmetry. This new and combined use of spatial measures evidenced remarkable increases on the average compactness scores for California's Congress, suggesting general alleviation of the bipartisan gerrymandering in the previous plan. On the contrary, the partisan gerrymandering in North Carolina intensified in the current map, indicated by the substantial decline in the compactness scores for a majority of the districts. Analysis of partisan bias in the districting plans suggested a very slight bias toward Democrats in California in both districting plans. In North Carolina, the partisan advantage shifted from Democrats to Republicans during redistricting. Comparative analysis between the two families of spatial measures revealed the superiority of the moment of inertia family to the classic shape-based indexes for measuring compactness of congressional districts. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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