Overview of Deep Dive

After a career in tech, I’ve immersed myself in redistricting and partisan gerrymandering over the last couple of years.

I’ve studied the mechanics of redistricting at the state level and redistricted North Carolina and Maryland by hand. I’ve dug into what partisan gerrymandering is fundamentally and thought hard about how to prevent it.

I’ve also looked the national implications of congressional redistricting and partisan gerrymandering and cases before the Supreme Court.

I’ve started publishing my research & analysis in bite-sized stories:

1. Will the Supreme Court Only Close the Door on Partisan Gerrymandering Halfway? (7 min read)— Outlines three specific decisions SCOTUS must make in Whitford to meaningfully curb partisan gerrymandering.
2. Baseline Congressional Districts: A Benchmark for Comparison (5 min read) — Proposes the concept of ‘baseline congressional districts’, using two of the most gerrymandered states in the country (NC and MD) as examples.
3. A Comprehensive Standard for Partisan Gerrymandering (6 min read)— Proposes a standard for partisan gerrymandering that encompasses both discriminatory effect and discriminatory intent.
4. The Lesser-Known Way to Gerrymander (4 min read)— Describes the lesser known technique of “implicit gerrymandering” and contrasts it with classical explicit gerrymandering.
5. A Quick Way to Enable More Natural Congressional Districts (3 min read)— Argues that the requirement that congressional districts have nearly identical populations should be relaxed to the tolerance allowed for legislative districts within states (5–10% deviations permissible).
6. How to Prevent Partisan Gerrymandering with State Constitutional Amendments (4 min read) — Explains how to effectively constrain partisan gerrymandering with simple, intelligble amendments to state constitutions.
7. Efficiency Gaps as Variable-sized Districts (3 min read)— Demonstrates that efficiency gaps are functionally equivalent to malapportioned districts.
8. A Unified Standard for Discriminatory Intent and Effect in Partisan Gerrymandering (2 min read) — Argues that a standard for discriminatory intent in partisan gerrymandering can be collapsed into the standard for harm.
9. Limits on Partisan Gerrymandering Are Like Guardrails for Redistricting (10 min read) — Shows that even if SCOTUS finally imposes limits on partisan gerrymandering, Democrats will still need wave elections to ever have a chance of controlling the House.

I welcome your feedback.

Alec Ramsay
The Redistricting Outsider