dcpetterson: The purpose of gerrymandering is quite clearly to maximize the number of seats or districts that a particular party holds. State legislatures do it in order to ensure that their party continues to control the state government, and the federal House of Representatives.

Michael: I’d say that even if there was no gerrymandering, between 25% and 30% of seats would be competitive. Perhaps under open-seat scenarios up to 40% of seats might be competitive, but in real life many incumbents can easily hold down seats that would otherwise be competitive.

Michael and Monotreme: Thank you for the information on the two dots.

Why, when­ever I type the word ‘reëlec­tion’, does the sec­ond ‘e’ appear with two dots over it?

Because the umlaut signifies that the two es are in separate syllables. I have a diacritic plugin on the site.

The num­ber of non­com­pet­i­tive dis­tricts would decrease, but almost def­i­nitely by less than you expect. The power of incum­bency is strong, even in sup­pos­edly non-​​incumbent elec­tion cycles.

42% of this cycle’s Senate elections are competitive. I’d expect a non-gerrymandered House to have closer to 40% than the current 18%. In other words, twice as many seats.

It seems to me that you think that the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives should have a high turnover rate

You might think that, but I don’t want a high turnover rate. I do, however, want Representatives to feel greater pressure to consider more constituents than the extremists.

You never responded to a point I made in my orig­i­nal post. Ger­ry­man­der­ing is fun!

I’m pretty sure I did. I believe it’s fun as an intellectual exercise, but there are plenty of fun intellectual exercises that have no business being implemented in reality.

We definitely have to agree to disagree. The extent of gerrymandering is at an all time high. And for the people in those district, it makes the minority party voters worse than useless in those districts heavily favoring the majority. 

Districts should be required to be as geocentric as possible for the population requirements.

You said: “Many [Representatives] have token oppo­si­tion.”

Well, this isn’t the fault of those who are drawing the maps. The people to blame for this are the state party leaders, the heads of the DCCC/NRCC, and generally anyone whose job is to recruit candidates.

Anyway, I would argue that in a lot of seats, the incumbent should have a 95% chance of winning. After all, why should a Republican have any chance of winning a Manhattan or SF Bay Area seat, and why should a Democrat have any chance of winning a West Texas seat, for example? Also, a lot of incumbents, even in swing districts, are well liked, and so would have a greater chance of winning than their district would suggest.

“I fully expect there to be non­com­pet­i­tive dis­tricts. But they would be sig­nif­i­cantly less com­mon with non­par­ti­san redis­trict­ing. Do you dis­agree with this?”

I partly agree with this. The number of noncompetitive districts would decrease, but almost definitely by less than you expect. The power of incumbency is strong, even in supposedly non-incumbent election cycles.

It seems to me that you think that the House of Representatives should have a high turnover rate, and that more Representatives should either be defeated or retire. I believe that longer-serving Representatives are often more knowledgeable at making laws and getting along with members of the opposite party than newer members. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if the House had either a high or low turnover rate, but I don’t think districts should be drawn in order to increase the turnover.

Also, one last thing. You never responded to a point I made in my original post. Gerrymandering is fun!