The following is an excerpt from a longer article on gerrymandering that ran on Wonkette a few days ago; I thought it was a quite clear and concise explainer, though I know there are more thorough and scholarly pieces available elsewhere on the intertoobz.
- The Efficiency Gap
The Efficiency Gap is a mathematical formula to waste as many of your opponent’s votes as possible. Cracking and Packing is yesterday’s gerrymandering. Today’s mapfuckers are using granular data and computer modeling as a force multiplier. This is Cracking and Packing on steroids!
If a candidate only needs 51% of the votes to win, any votes over and above that are essentially wasted. Similarly, votes for a losing candidate are also wasted. The entire purpose of partisan gerrymandering is to cause your opponent to waste as as many of his votes as possible.
Here’s a table that Kid $5F [the author of the piece goes by the handle "Five Dollar Feminist"] generated to illustrate the issue. (NB, even linebackers can be stats nerds!)
Imagine a state called Gerrymander with three electoral districts, each of which has 100 voters.
- Race#.........Dem Votes.........Rep Votes.........Result
Race 1........48................52................R Wins
Race 2........45................55................R Wins
Race 3........78................22................D Wins
Total........171...............129......................
Republicans got fewer votes, but won the majority of districts. NOT AN ACCIDENT. You’ll notice that the Republicans won in close races, where the Democrat won in a landslide. ALSO NOT AN ACCIDENT. Remember, all votes for a losing candidate are wasted, and any votes for the winner over 51 are wasted.
- Race#.....Dem Wasted Votes . Rep Wasted Votes . Net Wasted Votes
Race 1........48.................1..................49..........
Race 2........45.................4..................48..........
Race 3........27................22..................49..........
Total........120................27.................147..........
In the two Republican districts, Democrats wasted a lot of votes on their losing candidates, where Republicans voted efficiently — they got their guys over the finish line without a lot of surplus votes. In Race 3, the Democrats only needed 51 votes to win, but they got 78. So across the state, Republicans wasted only 27 votes, while forcing Democrats to waste 120.
I feel reasonably confident that Republicans drew the electoral maps in the fictional state of Gerrymander!
To measure how inefficient Democratic votes were compared to Republicans, we use this handy formula.
Efficiency Gap = (Total Democratic Wasted Votes – Total Republican Wasted Votes) ÷ Total Votes
So…
(120 Democratic Wasted Votes – 27 Republican Wasted Votes) ÷ 300 Total Votes = 0.31
But what does that even mean?
WELL…it means that Republicans were 30% more efficient in converting their votes into seats. And it means the system is really fucking rigged. So rigged, in fact, that the Wisconsin federal court found that it violated the Equal Protection rights of Democratic voters.
To be fair, Wisconsin’s efficiency gap only favored Republicans by about 14%. But under this map, Democrats will never be able to get a majority in the Wisconsin legislature, despite making up half the state’s voters. Even a wave year doesn’t produce a 14% swing.
The Wisconsin court said that there has to be a point where partisan gerrymandering is so unfair that it violates the Constitution. So, they came up with a new standard.We conclude, therefore, that the First Amendment and the Equal Protection clause prohibit a redistricting scheme which (1) is intended to place a severe impediment on the effectiveness of the votes of individual citizens on the basis of their political affiliation, (2) has that effect, and (3) cannot be justified on other, legitimate legislative grounds.
The plaintiffs argued that anything over a 7% Efficiency Gap should be considered to violate Equal Protection, unless the state can demonstrate another justification. (Think one blue city in an otherwise red state.) The Wisconsin federal court was unwilling to apply a specific percentage, but they did buy into the Efficiency Gap as a fair rubric for measuring the mapfuckery. The court threw out the state’s maps and told them to redraw them in time for the 2018 elections.
Today, the Supreme Court agreed to hear this case. On the one hand, this stays the redistricting order, so Wisconsin will probably be able to run the 2018 elections using its old maps. BOOOOO!!!!
On the other hand, if the Supreme Court agrees that there has to be a limit to partisan gerrymandering, it will be a political earthquake! And not just in state legislatures, either. In 2016, Republicans won 49.9% of the votes, but took 55.2% of seats in Congress. If Republicans can’t mapfuck themselves into state legislatures and then mapfuck the House of Representatives, it’s a whole new ballgame! - Race#.........Dem Votes.........Rep Votes.........Result
