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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Assessing the Partisan Effects of Redistricting

Bruce E. Cain
- 01 Jun 1985 - 
- Vol. 79, Iss: 2, pp 320-333
TLDR
In this paper, the authors assess the reality behind the politician's perception that redistricting matters and assess the impact that boundary changes have on the partisan composition of seats in the US House of Representatives.
Abstract: 
The purpose of this paper is to assess the reality behind the politician's perception that redistricting matters. There are, of course, many dimensions to that perception since redistricting has many effects. This paper will focus on the impact that boundary changes have on the partisan composition of seats. In order to do this, it will be necessary to specify what the expected partisan effects of redistricting are and how they can be measure. Thus, the paper first explains how the impact of redistricting will vary with the strategy of particular plans. Following this, there is an exploration of some techniques for measuring the partisan impact of boundary changes, and then a detailed analysis of the most important Congressional redistricting in 1982—the Burton plan in California.

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

 
     
  
      
     
     


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
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
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
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

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
  
 

           
    
  
         

         
            
          
       
   
           
         
         
        
      
      
  
         
          
     
     
        

         
       
       
         
  
     
       
         
        
   
       
         
             
           
          
           
      

           
    
  
         

         
      

    
          
       
   
           
 
       
         
        
      
    
            

         
       
  

       
           
        

          
           
          

          

          
            
           
   

    
         
      

            
          
            
         

         
        
         
           
            
         

           
           
         
 

        

            
        
         

       
 
        
        
         
         
         
   
      
         
         
            
        
          
          
     
        
         
          
    
      
        
 
     
         

      
             
 
        

  


          
        
     
     
        
           
     
    
           
   
    
  
          
            
    
      
   
      
       
 
         
             
    
     
   
          
            
        
         
         
       


        

          
        
        
       
   
     
          
     
         
         
 
      

     
 
           
         
  
         
        
        
          
 
          
          

         

     
         
         


         
        
          
   
     
         
         
          
  
      
          
         
 
         
          
          
 
     
        
         
          
           
         
         
            
 
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Journal ArticleDOI

Unintentional Gerrymandering: Political Geography and Electoral Bias in Legislatures

Jowei Chen, +1 more
- 27 Jun 2013 - 
TL;DR: This article showed that in many states, Democrats are inefficiently concentrated in large cities and smaller industrial agglomerations such that they can expect to win fewer than 50% of the seats when they win 50% votes.
Posted Content

A Unified Method of Evaluating Electoral Systems and Redistricting Plans

Andrew Gelman, +1 more
- 17 Jan 2008 - 
TL;DR: This article derived a unified statistical method with which one can produce substantially improved definitions and estimates of almost any feature of two-party electoral systems that can be defined based on district vote shares.
Posted Content

Enhancing Democracy Through Legislative Redistricting

Andrew Gelman, +1 more
- 17 Jan 2008 - 
TL;DR: In this article, the authors demonstrate the surprising benefits of legislative redistricting (including partisan gerrymandering) for American representative democracy, and demonstrate that redistricting increases responsiveness and that any type of redistricting reduces partisan bias as compared to an electoral system without redistricting.
Journal ArticleDOI

Enhancing democracy through legislative redistricting

Andrew Gelman, +1 more
- 01 Sep 1994 - 
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors demonstrate the surprising benefits of legislative redistricting (including partisan gerrymandering) for American representative democracy, and demonstrate that redistricting increases responsiveness and that any type of redistricting reduces partisan bias as compared to an electoral system without redistricting.
Journal ArticleDOI

A Unified Method of Evaluating Electoral Systems and Redistricting Plans

Andrew Gelman, +1 more
- 01 May 1994 - 
TL;DR: This paper derived a unified statistical method with which one can produce substantially improved definitions and estimates of almost any feature of two-party electoral systems that can be defined based on district vote shares.
References
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Congress, keystone of the Washington establishment

Morris P. Fiorina
TL;DR: Fiorina as discussed by the authors made a strong case that a Washington establishment does exist and that members of Congress are responsible for it, and described the self-serving interconnections that have developed between Congress, bureaucrats, and citizens with special interests.
Journal ArticleDOI

Congressional Elections: The Case of the Vanishing Marginals

David R. Mayhew
- 01 Mar 1974 - 
TL;DR: Mayhew as mentioned in this paper suggests that the House seat swing is a phenomenon of fast declining amplitude and therefore of fast decline significance, and that the number of districts with close House elections dropped precipitously; a similar, if slow, long-range decline has been occurring.
Journal ArticleDOI

The Relationship between Seats and Votes in Two-Party Systems*

Edward R. Tufte
- 01 Jun 1973 - 
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors test three models describing the inflation of the legislative power of the victorious party and then develop explanations of the observed differences in the swing ratio and the partisan bias of an electoral system.
Journal ArticleDOI

On the Decline of Competition in Congressional Elections

John Ferejohn
- 01 Mar 1977 - 
TL;DR: Several authors have observed a decline in the number of competitive congressional districts during the past two decades and various explanations have been proposed for this change as discussed by the authors, among these are theories attributing major causal significance to changing methods of drawing district boundaries, and increasing control of campaign resources by incumbents.
Journal ArticleDOI

The Case of the Vanishing Marginals: The Bureaucracy Did It*

Morris P. Fiorina
- 01 Mar 1977 - 
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors suggest that while electoral behavior has changed, the change is at least in part a response to changing congressional behavior, which in turn is a reaction to institutional change for which Congress is partly responsible.
Related Papers (5)

The Relationship between Seats and Votes in Two-Party Systems*

Edward R. Tufte
- 01 Jun 1973 - 

Enhancing democracy through legislative redistricting

Andrew Gelman, +1 more
- 01 Sep 1994 - 

Elbridge Gerry's Salamander: The Electoral Consequences of the Reapportionment Revolution

Gary W. Cox, +1 more

Optimal partisan gerrymandering

Guillermo Owen, +1 more
- 01 Jan 1988 - 

Malapportionment, Gerrymandering, and Party Fortunes in Congressional Elections

Robert S. Erikson
- 01 Dec 1972 - 
Frequently Asked Questions (1)
Q1. What are the contributions mentioned in the paper "Division of the humanities and social sciences" ?

The purpose of this paper is to assess the reality behind the politician 's perception that redistricting matters. This paper will focus on the impact that boundary changes have on the partisan composition of seats. Thus, the paper first explains how the impact of redistricting will vary with the strategy of particular plans. Since boundary issues are somewhat esoteric by the standards of normal political discourse, only severely addicted political junkies are willing or able to follow redistricting disputes closely.