{"id":2156751,"date":"2024-01-23T10:44:02","date_gmt":"2024-01-23T15:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-why-democrats-favorite-formula-for-electoral-maps-is-inherently-crooked\/"},"modified":"2024-01-23T10:50:45","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T15:50:45","slug":"exclusive-why-democrats-favorite-formula-for-electoral-maps-is-inherently-crooked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-why-democrats-favorite-formula-for-electoral-maps-is-inherently-crooked\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Democrats&#8217; Preferred Electoral Map Formula Is Inherently Biased"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fexclusive-why-democrats-favorite-formula-for-electoral-maps-is-inherently-crooked%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2156751&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"article-content\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Flaws of the\u200d Efficiency Gap: Debunking Leftist Claims of Gerrymandering<\/h2>\n<p>Since 2014, leftist political map makers have relied on a funky formula to argue the existence of \u2063partisan gerrymandering. A new report from the \u200cWisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) breaks\u2062 down\u2063 the inherent \u2064flaws in the so-called \u201cefficiency gap.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Will Flanders, research \u200cdirector at the Milwaukee-based conservative law firm, the efficiency gap measure has been used primarily by liberals in a number\u2063 of states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina to make the gerrymandering argument in current political map lawsuits. They believe it is the be-all and end-all \u200cof gerrymandering tests. We have determined it\u2064 cannot be.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2037473173\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-53c368432d1ac937b15b7a8c1267eee2 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-53c368432d1ac937b15b7a8c1267eee2\"><\/div>\n<p>Flanders and WILL\u2019s Noah Diekemper are authors of \u201cBehind the Lines: Investigating the Efficiency Gap in Redistricting Cases,\u201d exclusively provided \u2062to The Federalist. The report \u2064lays out \u200dseveral problems \u200cundercutting the unquestioned faith the left and the accomplice media\u200c have placed in \u2062the formula.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u2018A \u200bSingle Tidy Number\u2019<\/h3>\n<p>The\u200b efficiency gap is the brainchild of legal scholar Nicholas Stephanopoulos and political scientist Eric\u2064 McGhee.\u200d In 2014, the academics published a \u2063 <a href=\"https:\/\/papers.ssrn.com\/sol3\/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2457468\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">paper<\/a> that introduced \u201ca new measure\u2063 of\u2064 partisan symmetry.\u201d The efficiency gap formula, as defined by its creators, is the \u201cdifference between\u200c the parties\u2019\u2062 respective wasted votes in an \u200belection, divided by the total number of votes cast.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt captures, in a single tidy number, all of the <a href=\"https:\/\/ballotpedia.org\/Packing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">packing<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/ballotpedia.org\/Cracking\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">cracking<\/a> decisions that go into a district\u200d plan,\u201d the authors boasted.<\/p>\n<p>University of Michigan political\u2062 scientist <a href=\"https:\/\/lsa.umich.edu\/polisci\/people\/faculty\/jowei.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Jowei \u200dChen<\/a>, considered an unimpeachable election maps expert in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/cotton-bill-would-ban-critical-race-theory-training-in-armed-forces\/\" title=\"Cotton Bill Would Ban Critical Race Theory Training in Armed Forces\">left-wing circles<\/a>, has lent the metric\u2062 considerable currency in several court cases, including challenges to \u2064Wisconsin\u2019s maps. Chen is the left\u2019s \u200dgo-to scientist on redistricting.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2e01e26214124117be5c70746cb09b82 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2e01e26214124117be5c70746cb09b82\"><\/div>\n<p>According to the \u201cefficiency gap\u201d approach, gerrymandering occurs \u201cwhen a party \u2018wins a lot of\u2063 districts \u2064by a little,\u2019 while their opponents win only a few districts by a lot,\u201d the WILL report explains.<\/p>\n<p>For the history buffs, the term was derived from Founding Father Elbridge Gerry, the governor of Massachusetts who\u200d signed the\u2062 1812 bill creating the odd, salamander-looking political maps that gave his\u200c fellow Democratic-Republicans more favorable boundaries \u2014 and \u200bexpanded their power.<\/p>\n<p>Some 200 years \u200clater, 2014\u2019s novel efficiency gap attempts to provide a\u2063 kind\u200c of definitive number to show when redistricting maps give an outsized political\u200c advantage\u2062 to a party. The metric measures the so-called \u201cwasted\u201d vote.<\/p>\n<p>WILL\u2019s report includes a simple explanation of what a \u201cwasted vote\u201d is. If\u200d one party received 60 of 100 total\u2062 votes and another party received \u200b40, the\u2062 latter party would have counted 40 wasted votes because it lost the election. The votes were spent on a losing candidate. The party receiving 60 votes would have recorded nine wasted votes since only 51 votes were \u200dneeded to win the election.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b9256c70f887b5eafed2b0a09fe47762 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b9256c70f887b5eafed2b0a09fe47762\"><\/div>\n<p>The efficiency \u200cgap looks at the difference\u2064 in each party\u2019s \u2063total wasted votes over all the districts in a state, the report notes.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Where the Voters Are<\/h3>\n<p>One of the many problems with \u2064the efficiency gap\u200b is that it fails to sufficiently take \u2064into \u2063account political geography. WILL\u2019s report notes what should be abundantly clear:\u2062 that the modern political divide \u2063falls along urban and rural\u200d lines. \u201cDemocrat voters tend to be more concentrated in urban and (increasingly) \u2064suburban areas,\u201d the report explains, while rural America tends to be populated by Republicans.<\/p>\n<p>In Wisconsin\u2019s \u20642022 election, while Republican\u2063 candidate for governor Tim Michels won a majority of counties, incumbent Democrat Gov. Tony Evers won because he \u201cran up the margins\u201d in the Badger State\u2019s more\u2064 heavily populated areas. In deep blue \u200bDane County, which includes capital city Madison, Evers hauled in a whopping <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/election\/2022\/results\/wisconsin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">79 percent<\/a> of the nearly 300,000 votes \u2064cast. Michels failed to generate enough support from Wisconsin\u2019s conservative-dominated rural areas to make up for the \u2064urban turnout.<\/p>\n<p>Flanders said leftist legal challenges don\u2019t often include the geopolitical arguments when talking about large efficiency gaps, and corporate media quickly gloss over the topic.<\/p>\n<p>The efficiency gap also runs \u2064into trouble thanks to the Voting Rights \u2064Act, which demands\u200d the creation of some districts with a majority \u200cof racial-minority residents. It\u2019s \u201cdesigned to\u2064 protect the ability of members of minority groups to elect members from similar \u200dethnic backgrounds\u200d and to ensure that racial \u2062minorities are not shut out of \u2062political power,\u201d WILL\u2019s report states.<\/p>\n<p>Because the \u200ddistricts are generally home to significant majorities of minorities, the large numbers often result in \u201cwasted\u201d votes, \u2062typically for Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>Evers and the Wisconsin Supreme Court ran afoul of the Voting Rights Act in \u2062March 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/voting-rights-voting-race-and-ethnicity-legislature-hispanics-4348767471d03df0827d0ab227ac456a\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">rejected<\/a> maps drawn up \u2063by the left-wing governor\u2019s phony People\u2019s Maps Commission. The 7-2 ruling found the state court erred \u2062in signing off on the maps and their invention of a seventh black-majority district \u2014 up from six.<\/p>\n<p>WILL joined the Wisconsin legislature in appealing the implementation of Evers\u2019 maps to the Supreme Court. The law firm <a href=\"https:\/\/will-law.org\/u-s-supreme-court-reverses-wi-supreme-court-gov-evers-maps-unconstitutional\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">argued<\/a> the maps were a \u201cracial gerrymander with the \u200cgoal of \u2018spreading\u2019 black voters among\u2064 several legislative districts seeking a bare majority in each.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, the majority-minority districts created in compliance with the VRA \u200cdrive up the efficiency gap\u2019s number of\u2064 wasted \u200cvotes, contributing to\u2064 a \u200bflawed picture of gerrymandering.<\/p>\n<p>Defenders\u2062 of the metric also shake off criticism about how the efficiency gap treats uncontested races. Where one party or another fails to field\u2062 a candidate in \u2064a race, efficiency gap adherents simply impute \u200dnumbers \u2014 or \u201cguesstimate\u201d how many votes the party would have received if it had run a candidate. That\u2019s an\u200d imprecise measure, at best.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn one analysis of the 2012 election maps \u200cin Wisconsin, two different\u2062 imputation methods led to a variation of\u200c the efficiency gap from 9.0% to 13.85%,\u201d the\u2062 WILL study reports.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What\u2019s in a Number?<\/h3>\n<p>The efficiency gap revolves around an arbitrary \u200bnumber: 7 percent. As WILL\u2019s \u2063report points out, many court cases have \u2062argued that an efficiency gap greater than 7 percent should be the point of recognizable gerrymandering. But what\u200c does that mean? The authors assert that \u201cthere is no clear reason\u200d why this number is preferable to 6.0% or 10%. It\u2019s\u2064 a rule\u200c of thumb.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yet, leftist map makers in swing state Wisconsin are using this imprecise metric to argue for maps that would give Democrats an electoral advantage. The Wisconsin Supreme Court, with a left-leaning majority \u2062for\u200c the first \u200ctime in 15 years, last month <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/wisconsin-supreme-court-ruling-republican-drawn-district-maps-fallout\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">tossed out<\/a> Republican-drawn maps and more than likely will pick \u200da\u200c redistricting plan when Evers and \u200cthe GOP-controlled legislature fail to\u200c come to terms.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile,\u2062 Democrats, looking for political advantage, will continue to roll out the problematic \u200cefficiency gap as gospel and claim to identify Republican-led gerrymandering around every corner.<\/p>\n<p>WILL\u2019s report\u200b likens the measure to \u200cthe <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/more-than-73-of-americans-who-died-of-covid-19-were-obese-or-overweight-cdc-data\/\" title=\"More Than 73% Of Americans Who Died Of COVID-19 Were Obese Or Overweight: CDC Data\">body mass index<\/a>: \u201cit\u2019s a statistical measure you can calculate that does provide some information about a \u2064person in the form\u200b of one\u2063 clean number, but that cannot be relied upon as a definition of health or \u2062even of healthy weight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe bottom\u2062 line,\u201d the report continues, \u2062\u201cis that the efficiency\u2063 gap\u200b cannot be used as a tool to disqualify maps on the grounds \u2064of gerrymandering.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2e844ed7e353f954b2284921f34c4c65 fdrlst__b89e9-after-post-content\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2e844ed7e353f954b2284921f34c4c65\"><\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">\n<\/div>\n<p> <\/p>\n<h2> How does reliance \u200don the \u200befficiency gap as\u200b the sole measure of gerrymandering undermine the credibility of the redistricting \u200bprocess,\u2064 as warned by Flanders<\/h2>\n<p><span>  Ction in Maryland, one \u200cof the\u2063 states in the \u200defficiency gap case, nearly all the House races\u2063 were uncontested. Candidates in 82 out of\u2063 99 races managed to win running unopposed. For the efficiency gap, \u2062this poses a problem,\u201d\u200b the WILL report states.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.idsnews.com\/article\/2021\/04\/iu-campus-elections-commission-widens-investigation-of-iub-2020-election\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">While speaking at\u200c a 2016 election \u200blaw conference<\/a>, Chen acknowledged \u2064\u201cthe adoption of a particular zero vote value \u2062\u200cis important, and assertions about what the\u200b best value for that is,\u200c are \u2064arbitrary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have to\u200b provide some kind of proxy measure for what an uncontested race\u2019s margin would have been,\u201d he added. \u201cAny of the choices you make require a leap of\u200b faith.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u200cIf \u200byou lose a seat \u2063because you don\u2019t have a candidate to run, I think it\u2019s hard to argue \u2062you were wronged,\u201d\u2063 Flanders said.<\/p>\n<p>WILL\u200d also notes \u2062that the courts \u2062have yet to\u2064 agree \u2062on a standard population deviation level for \u200dgerrymandering. \u200d\u201cIt is impossible to test for \u200cpartisan symmetry if you cannot agree\u2064 on what the demographic standard is,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Worthless Metric?<\/h3>\n<p>Flanders warns that relying on the efficiency gap as the sole measure of gerrymandering can lead \u200bto inconsistent \u2063results and undermine the credibility of the entire redistricting \u2062process.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe gerrymandering metric game is largely a proxy for which party the court wants\u200c to win,\u201d Flanders told\u200b The Federalist. \u201cYou\u2062 can get any answer you\u2063 want by\u2064 picking a different metric.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added that there is no\u2062 widespread consensus among scholars\u2062 or\u200b the courts about what constitutes an acceptable\u2062 level of partisan advantage \u200din\u2064 redistricting.<\/p>\n<p>The WILL report concludes that the \u200cefficiency\u2064 gap is a flawed and unreliable metric for assessing partisan gerrymandering.\u200b It takes into account only wasted votes\u200d and fails to consider important factors such as political geography, the impact of the Voting Rights Act, and \u200duncontested races.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRather\u200d than providing \u200ca clear and objective measure of gerrymandering, the efficiency gap creates\u200c a false sense of certainty\u200c while\u2064 glossing over \u200cthe\u200b many complexities and\u2063 trade-offs\u200b that go into\u2063 redistricting,\u201d the report \u200bstates.<\/p>\n<p>While the efficiency gap may\u2064 have been embraced by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/kamala-harris-condemns-d-c-demonstrators-despite-past-encouragement-of-violent-blm-mobs\/\" title=\"Kamala Harris condemns D.C. demonstrators despite past encouragement of violent BLM mobs\">left-wing activists<\/a> and media outlets, its flaws and shortcomings cannot\u200c be ignored. It is\u200d crucial to approach the issue\u2062 of gerrymandering with \u200ca more \u200bcomprehensive and nuanced understanding to ensure\u200b fair and accurate representation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since 2014, left-wing map makers have used a flawed formula called the &#8220;efficiency gap&#8221; to support partisan gerrymandering. The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) has released a report exposing the flaws in this measure. Primarily used by liberals, the efficiency gap has been criticized for its inherent biases<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2753,"featured_media":2156752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2156751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2156751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2753"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2156751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2156751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2156752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2156751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2156751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2156751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}