TY - JOUR
T1 - How to Measure Legislative District Compactness If You Only Know It When You See It
AU - Kaufman, Aaron R.
AU - King, Gary
AU - Komisarchik, Mayya
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
©2021, Midwest Political Science Association
PY - 2021/7
Y1 - 2021/7
N2 - To deter gerrymandering, many state constitutions require legislative districts to be “compact.” Yet, the law offers few precise definitions other than “you know it when you see it,” which effectively implies a common understanding of the concept. In contrast, academics have shown that compactness has multiple dimensions and have generated many conflicting measures. We hypothesize that both are correct—that compactness is complex and multidimensional, but a common understanding exists across people. We develop a survey to elicit this understanding, with high reliability (in data where the standard paired comparisons approach fails). We create a statistical model that predicts, with high accuracy, solely from the geometric features of the district, compactness evaluations by judges and public officials responsible for redistricting, among others. We also offer compactness data from our validated measure for 17,896 state legislative and congressional districts, as well as software to compute this measure from any district.
AB - To deter gerrymandering, many state constitutions require legislative districts to be “compact.” Yet, the law offers few precise definitions other than “you know it when you see it,” which effectively implies a common understanding of the concept. In contrast, academics have shown that compactness has multiple dimensions and have generated many conflicting measures. We hypothesize that both are correct—that compactness is complex and multidimensional, but a common understanding exists across people. We develop a survey to elicit this understanding, with high reliability (in data where the standard paired comparisons approach fails). We create a statistical model that predicts, with high accuracy, solely from the geometric features of the district, compactness evaluations by judges and public officials responsible for redistricting, among others. We also offer compactness data from our validated measure for 17,896 state legislative and congressional districts, as well as software to compute this measure from any district.
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U2 - 10.1111/ajps.12603
DO - 10.1111/ajps.12603
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85109946764
SN - 0092-5853
VL - 65
SP - 533
EP - 550
JO - American Journal of Political Science
JF - American Journal of Political Science
IS - 3
ER -