Meta tags:

Headings (most frequently used words):

score, electoral, district, maps, evaluate, their, fairness, what, is, partisan, gerrymandering, how, do, we, measure, it,

Text of the page (most frequently used words):
the (55), and (20), party (18), new (15), more (11), for (11), partisan (11), districts (10), #gerrymandering (10), mean (9), median (9), share (9), bias (9), votes (8), vote (8), district (8), are (8), efficiency (7), state (7), maps (7), learn (6), difference (6), one (6), gap (6), redistricting (6), virginia (6), south (6), dakota (6), carolina (6), north (6), about (5), threshold (5), that (5), plan (5), election (5), inefficient (5), seats (5), declination (4), with (4), win (4), its (4), all (4), has (4), when (4), each (4), seat (4), which (4), total (4), states (4), michigan (4), other (3), not (3), distribution (3), then (3), this (3), cracking (3), their (3), packing (3), candidate (3), cast (3), voters (3), but (3), politicians (3), independent (3), process (3), wyoming (3), wisconsin (3), west (3), washington (3), vermont (3), utah (3), texas (3), tennessee (3), rhode (3), island (3), pennsylvania (3), oregon (3), oklahoma (3), ohio (3), york (3), mexico (3), jersey (3), hampshire (3), nevada (3), nebraska (3), montana (3), missouri (3), mississippi (3), minnesota (3), massachusetts (3), maryland (3), maine (3), louisiana (3), kentucky (3), kansas (3), iowa (3), indiana (3), illinois (3), idaho (3), hawaii (3), georgia (3), florida (3), delaware (3), connecticut (3), colorado (3), california (3), arkansas (3), arizona (3), alaska (3), alabama (3), planscore (3), score (3), designs (2), loss (2), winning (2), across (2), example (2), against (2), skewed (2), favor (2), opponent (2), between (2), hypothetical (2), tied (2), would (2), statewide (2), observed (2), preferred (2), candidates (2), margins (2), they (2), case (2), calculated (2), number (2), than (2), measure (2), impact (2), our (2), voting (2), able (2), elections (2), control (2), drawing (2), through (2), creation (2), commissions (2), from (2), make (2), translate (2), what (2), 2024 (2), scores (2), used (2), house (2), skews (2), most (2), fairness (2), alt, bluesky, icon, gerrymander, mind, ensure, favored, end, side, neutral, map, reasons, does, treat, special, metric, treats, related, asymmetry, indicative, minus, diverge, significantly, conversely, close, symmetric, perfectly, received, have, calculate, shifted, amount, necessary, simulate, determined, always, carried, out, supporters, among, many, lose, relatively, narrow, backers, few, enormous, both, produce, sense, contribute, losing, above, plus, needed, victory, taking, subtracting, dividing, captures, single, extent, lines, crack, pack, decli, nation, use, four, distinct, measures, these, metrics, reliable, competitive, only, should, trusted, predominates, how, first, order, understand, need, been, practice, american, nearly, since, founding, country, recent, cycles, accuracy, voter, databases, mapping, software, skyrocketed, leading, trend, increasingly, where, line, way, combat, bodies, separate, legislatures, responsible, you, can, campaign, legal, center, democracyu, toolkit, group, spurred, commission, 2018, read, story, nancy, wang, executive, director, draw, easier, get, reelected, into, efficiently, legislative, power, over, policies, government, enacts, without, gaps, future, turnout, weighted, shares, modeled, 2026, scenarios, remaps, 2022, 2012, 2002, 1992, 1982, 1972, 2000, swing, sized, show, aggregate, created, render, graph4, bad, times, pro, pppppppp, yyyy, data, republican, democrat, houses, senates, federal, legislators, elected, every, ten, years, governments, redraw, boundaries, known, promotes, easy, policymakers, advocates, assess, whether, fair, gerrymandered, also, provide, access, comprehensive, ever, assembled, historical, dataset, evaluate, electoral, view, current, plans, home, toggle, navigation,

Text of the page (random words):
planscore toggle navigation home view current plans score a plan what is planscore score electoral district maps evaluate their fairness most of our federal and state legislators are elected from districts every ten years state governments redraw district boundaries in a process known as redistricting planscore promotes fairness in the redistricting process we make it easy for policymakers and advocates to score new district maps and assess whether they re fair or gerrymandered we also provide access to the most comprehensive historical dataset of partisan gerrymandering ever assembled u s house state senates state houses skews democrat skews republican no data total yyyy bias n n n n seats pro pppppppp bad times created with render graph4 py ak al ar az ca co ct de fl ga hi ia id il in ks ky la ma md me mi mn mo ms mt nc nd ne nh nj nm nv ny oh ok or pa ri sc sd tn tx ut va vt wa wi wv wy n a n a n a states sized by efficiency gap in seats eg seats to show impact on aggregate bias in the u s house 45 d 55 r vote share at d 1 swing d 12 r 12 2000 1972 1982 1992 2002 2012 2022 2024 remaps 2026 scenarios observed 2024 scores used for states without new maps modeled scores used for states with new maps efficiency gaps for future elections are calculated with turnout weighted seat and vote shares alabama alaska arizona arkansas california colorado connecticut delaware florida georgia hawaii idaho illinois indiana iowa kansas kentucky louisiana maine maryland massachusetts michigan minnesota mississippi missouri montana nebraska nevada new hampshire new jersey new mexico new york north carolina north dakota ohio oklahoma oregon pennsylvania rhode island south carolina south dakota tennessee texas utah vermont virginia washington west virginia wisconsin wyoming alabama alaska arizona arkansas california colorado connecticut delaware florida georgia hawaii idaho illinois indiana iowa kansas kentucky louisiana maine maryland massachusetts michigan minnesota mississippi missouri montana nebraska nevada new hampshire new jersey new mexico new york north carolina north dakota ohio oklahoma oregon pennsylvania rhode island south carolina south dakota tennessee texas utah vermont virginia washington west virginia wisconsin wyoming alabama alaska arizona arkansas california colorado connecticut delaware florida georgia hawaii idaho illinois indiana iowa kansas kentucky louisiana maine maryland massachusetts michigan minnesota mississippi missouri montana nebraska nevada new hampshire new jersey new mexico new york north carolina north dakota ohio oklahoma oregon pennsylvania rhode island south carolina south dakota tennessee texas utah vermont virginia washington west virginia wisconsin wyoming what is partisan gerrymandering gerrymandering is the process by which politicians draw voting maps to make it easier to get reelected through gerrymandering a party is able to translate its votes into seats more efficiently than its opponent seats translate to legislative power and more control over the policies the government enacts gerrymandering has been a practice in american elections nearly since the founding of the country but in recent redistricting cycles the accuracy of voter databases and mapping software has skyrocketed leading to a trend of increasingly skewed maps in the states where politicians control district line drawing one way to combat gerrymandering is through the creation of independent redistricting commissions bodies separate from state legislatures that are responsible for drawing the districts you can learn more about independent redistricting commissions in campaign legal center s democracyu toolkit and read the story of nancy wang executive director of voters not politicians the group that spurred the creation of the michigan independent redistricting commission in 2018 but first in order to understand the impact of gerrymandering on our voting maps we need to be able to measure it how do we measure it we use four distinct measures of partisan gerrymandering the efficiency gap partisan bias the mean median difference and declination all of these metrics are reliable when a state is competitive but only the efficiency gap and declination should be trusted when one party predominates in a state efficiency gap partisan bias mean median decli nation partisan gerrymandering is always carried out by cracking a party s supporters among many districts in which their preferred candidates lose by relatively narrow margins and or by packing a party s backers in a few districts in which their preferred candidates win by enormous margins both cracking and packing produce votes that are inefficient in the sense that they do not contribute to a candidate s election in the case of cracking all votes cast for the losing candidate are inefficient in the case of packing all votes cast for the winning candidate above the 50 plus one threshold needed for victory are inefficient the efficiency gap is calculated by taking one party s total inefficient votes in an election subtracting the other party s total inefficient votes and dividing by the total number of votes cast it captures in a single number the extent to which district lines crack and pack one party s voters more than the other party s voters learn more about the efficiency gap partisan bias is the difference between each party s seat share and 50 in a hypothetical perfectly tied election for example if a party would win 55 of a plan s districts if it received 50 of the statewide vote then the plan would have a bias of 5 in this party s favor to calculate partisan bias the observed vote share in each district is shifted by the amount necessary to simulate a tied statewide election each party s seat share in this hypothetical election is then determined the difference between each party s seat share and 50 is partisan bias learn more about partisan bias the mean median difference is a party s median vote share minus its mean vote share across all of a plan s districts for example if a party has a median vote share of 45 and a mean vote share of 50 then the plan has a mean median difference of 5 against this party when the mean and the median diverge significantly the district distribution is skewed in favor of one party and against its opponent conversely when the mean and the median are close the district distribution is more symmetric learn more about the mean median difference a gerrymander designs districts with the win loss threshold in mind to ensure that more districts of the favored party end up on the winning side of the threshold a neutral map designs districts for other reasons and does not treat the win loss threshold as special the declination metric treats threshold related asymmetry in the distribution of votes across districts as indicative of partisan gerrymandering learn more about the declination learn more alt bluesky icon