Redistricting by Formula: An Ohio Reform Experiment

• Author: Micah Altman,Michael McDonald
• Date: 01 January 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X17700611
• Published date: 01 January 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X17700611

American Politics Research

2018, Vol. 46(1) 103 –131

© The Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X17700611

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Article

Redistricting by Formula:

An Ohio Reform

Experiment

Micah Altman1 and Michael McDonald2

Abstract

In the last decade, Ohio reformers advocated redistricting by formula:

selecting the redistricting plan that scores best on a predefined objective

scoring function that combines prima facie neutral criteria with political

goals of plan fairness and district competition. In the post-2010 redistricting,

these reformers hosted a public competition where prizes were awarded

to the best legal plan scored on the reformers’ formula. The submitted

plans provide a unique opportunity to evaluate how redistricting by

formula may work in practice. Our analysis finds the public yields a broader

range of redistricting plans, on indicia of legal and public policy interest,

than developed by the state legislature. The Pareto frontier reveals plans

that perform better than the legislature’s adopted plan on one and two

dimensions, as well as the reformers’ overall scoring function. Our

evaluation reveals minimal trade-offs among the components of the overall

competition’s scoring criteria, but we caution that the scoring formula may

be sensitive to implementation choices among its components. Compared

with the legislature’s plan, the reform community can get more of the four

criteria they value; importantly, without sacrificing the state’s only African

American opportunity congressional district.

Keywords

redistricting, open government, participation, information and communication

technology, transparency, crowdsourcing

1Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

2University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Micah Altman, E25-131, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

Email: escience@mit.edu

700611APRXXX10.1177/1532673X17700611American Politics ResearchAltman and McDonald

research-article2017

104 American Politics Research 46(1)

Redistricting is the process of redrawing electoral district boundaries.

Ostensibly, those drawing the lines improve representation by achieving

facially neutral objective administrative criteria such as population equality,

contiguity, and, depending on the state, other criteria such as compactness,

county integrity, and maintenance of existing political and community bound-

aries, among others. However, redistricting authorities often have wide dis-

cretion to act within the bounds of these constraints, such that the

administrative criteria may not significantly constrain the creation of districts

to promote political goals. These political goals may include incumbent pro-

tection by drawing of uncompetitive, safe districts; racial gerrymandering

designed to diminish the representation of a racial or ethnic group; and the

maximization of expected seats won by a favored party.

A potential approach to prevent redistricting authorities from using the

process to further their political goals is to explicitly incorporate and balance

the administrative criteria against excessive political goals in a quantitative

formula. Redistricting by formula is popular among some advocates, includ-

ing scholars (Vickrey, 1961), pundits, and politicians, who wish to remove

politics from redistricting. In the words of then-governor Ronald Reagan,

“There is only one way to do reapportionment—feed into the computer all

the factors except political registration” (Goff, 1972, p. A3). Yet scholars

(Altman & McDonald, 2010; Nagel, 1965) have cautioned the promise of

computing and formulaic approaches to redistricting are more limited than

what advocates may envision. Ohio reformers have been recent strong advo-

cates for redistricting by formula. Twice, in 2009 and 2011, a coalition of

good-government groups held redistricting competitions that awarded prizes

to redistricting plans drawn by members of the public that scored best on a

formula comprising well-defined administrative and political criteria. We

evaluate the plans produced by this approach and compare them to the legis-

lature’s adopted plan. In addition to assessing how well this formulaic

approach works in Ohio, particularly with regard to public involvement in

plan development, we further illuminate scholarly debate regarding the trade-

offs among various redistricting criteria.

Redistricting in Ohio

Ohio uses a dual method of redistricting state legislative and congressional

districts. The Ohio Apportionment Board established in 1851 is among the

oldest redistricting commissions used in the United States (Barber, 1981).

The commission has five members, three of whom are statewide elected offi-

cials, and two of whom are appointed by the state legislative leaders of the

two major political parties. Until recently, the Apportionment Board drew