Mathematicians are deploying algorithms to stop gerrymandering
technologyreview.com
technologyreview.com
But apparently at least a few states outlaw gerrymandering and the practice can be challenged in court if you can prove they were drawn unfairly for the explicit purpose of giving one party an advantage. It's notoriously hard to prove that and these people are hoping they've created tools that be convincing to a judge.
Of course, not all partisan advantages are the result of gerrymandering. State boundaries aren't gerrymandered, but equal representation in the Senate still results in extremely disproportionate influence of rural people.
People controlling redistricting will push back all the way, it's not surprising. If courts don't provide a remedy - and with current political structure in USA, courts behavior is depending on which party is long time in power - then theoretically the only reasonable approach would be rebellion, as people need to put in power those who'd redistrict for fair elections, and select judges who'd judge more objectively, and - more importantly - put mechanisms in place which would prevent a party, even the one long time in power, from changing this. That's usually a matter of constitution change, and there is push back, and there is matter of relative urgency - some things which should be there, aren't in a constitution for centuries, so more expedient approaches are needed.
Just because you don't think it will work, doesn't mean it isn't happening.
Its unstated purpose is to solicit donations from wealthy New Englanders who want to think they are "right about politics" rather than think they are guilty or complicit in whatever similar scheme as gerrymandering they are party to.
In that scenario, long-term demographic factors (and how they are shaped by Government policy) should also be placed under the same scrutiny as gerrymandering.
If one party tweaks the system to give them an advantage in the next election, how does that compare to one party tweaking the system to give them an advantage for the next 100 elections?
The worst case scenario is that the USA turns into a one-party state with effectively no opposition - at which point it ceases to be a democracy.
The urban/rural divide is a tale as old as Rome and unless the desired outcomes and side effects for "fair" districting are clearly stated it's just a way for the socially accepted (pushed by the media) team to gain an advantage while seeming "fair" (aka our team wins).
One possible solution would be to agree in objective reproducible rules on when and how draw new lines in the map, but again, that would require common sense from the political parties.
It sounds to me like you just don't like the possibility that "your side" might be doing something politically nefarious. And don't get me wrong, it's likely that both sides are gerrymandering. It just so happens that republicans have more governorships and other state power, and have had much more opportunity to draw districts.
You should be happy about the existence of mathematical tools to try to prove when someone in power is choosing their voters, instead of the voters choosing the person in power.
We’ve been through this before, with competing congressional apportionment algorithms.
Algorithms will fall into two groups: the first will favor Democrats in the real world and Republicans in the counterfactual swapped-dataset world, and the second will favor Republicans in the real world and Democrats in the counterfactual swapped-dataset world. There will be arguments that multiple algorithms, some from each group, are each the "fairest" by varying definitions. GP suspects that it will be mainly algorithms from the first group that end up being used.