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Comment by nonameiguess | Hacker News Reader

It took a while there to tell what they're hoping to accomplish. It's not like legislators are going to care when you show them evidence the maps are not fairly drawn. They already know that and are doing it on purpose.

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.

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From the sound of it, they're hoping to educate the public about how gerrymandering works, and how to identify heavily gerrymandered district maps. In some states, they might get a day in court, in others, the only remedy is informed voters.

What about creating some simple rules like districts can only have a maximum of 6 sides that would effectively make gerrymandering impossible?

Because as parent mentioned, the people who control this specifically DO NOT WANT rules that take ANY control out of their hands. They want the ability to skew the voters to their party, exclusively.

I thought about such a restriction, and now I think the "extreme outlier" approach is better, as it gets closer to the actual goal.

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.

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