Extra Credit Project: Redistricting Maryland (10 points) Maryland is one of the most gerrymandered states in the country. Several of the congressional districts are strung together by single roads or waterways. Some of these districts were created to guarantee the election of particular people or control by particular political parties. This assignment will give you a chance to try to imagine a fairer Maryland in which the voters pick their representatives instead of the politicians picking their voters. In this assignment you will provide a redistricting plan for Maryland that creates 8 congressional districts that are fair in themselves and fair overall. Here are the things you will have to do to complete this project. 1. Read “Partisan Gerrymandering and the Efficiency Gap,” a copy of which is linked to this assignment. Though the article is 71 pages long, you’ll only need to really study about 10-15 pages of it. What you’re looking for is an understanding of what an “efficiency gap” is and how it can be measured. In this assignment, you will be creating congressional districts that minimize the efficiency gap. a. Calculate the efficiency gap as it existed when Maryland adopted its current districting map in October of 2011. To do that, you will need data on the distribution of Democratic and Republican votes in each of Maryland’s 8 congressional districts as of 2010. You should be able to get that data in downloadable form from the Maryland State Board of Elections. b. Once you have calculated the size of the efficiency gap, you will know how many districts each of the parties should win. That will give you one of the eventual requirements of your redistricting plan. 2. Now that you know how many districts Democrats and Republicans should win in a fair system, you will have to build that fair system. Your plan must: a. Minimize the efficiency gap b. Produce 8 congressional districts c. Minimize differences in population sizes d. Minimize the land area required for each district so that your districts are reasonably compact (you may have to relax that rule when you are dealing with sparsely populated areas) e. Keep all districts contiguous. You may connect land areas that are connected to each other by water, provided that the districts remain reasonably compact. f. Wherever possible, keep communities together. 3. In building your districts you will need to know how many people live in each county. I suggest you start with the interactive map provided by the Census. Be sure to select the “County” level. Then, when you click on each county, you can see its name and official population level as of 2010. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. It will probably be helpful for you to record this information in a spreadsheet. Figure out how many people should be in each district (divide the total population of Maryland as shown on the interactive map by 8). Once you know how many people each district should have, then you can begin to sketch your district boundaries. For this step, I would try to keep county populations together. In order to fine tune your sketch, you may have to use smaller units than counties. You can get data on these smaller places from the interactive map by zooming in on “Places” or “County Subdivisions.” Even though the state legislature can split these places up on its district map, for purposes of this assignment, you are to keep them together. In fine tuning your map to take political realities into account, you will probably need data at the precinct level. You can get most of what you need at the Maryland State Board of Elections web site. a. Pick the year you want to see b. Click on the data files link c. Find the county or the race you want to see and click on it d. Open the file it downloads with a spreadsheet program In some cases, you may need precinct maps. In that case, you should call the State Board of Elections to ask where you can get them. Assignment Deliverables: a. Map of Maryland at a scale big enough for me to see the communities that are on the borders of your districts b. Data about your map. On a spreadsheet show me for each of your districts i. Number of people ii. Number of registered voters in each party iii. Actual voter turnout for 2012, 2014 and 2016 iv. Number of votes cast in the precincts included in each of YOUR districts (let’s see if your districts actually perform as you predicted they would) v. For each year, actual efficiency gap (show your calculations) c. Comments about this assignment. I want to know what was difficult about it, what practical things I could have done to improve the experience for you, and what you learned by doing it. The project is due before you start your final exam. You may work in teams, and if you do, I will split the extra credit points among the people in the team. This is a big project, and it’s worth 10 points.
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