Political Geography and Representation: A Case Study of Districting in Pennsylvania

Abstract: This preprint offers a detailed look, both qualitative and quantitative, at districting with respect to recent voting patterns in one state: Pennsylvania. We investigate how much the partisan playing field is tilted by political geography. In particular we closely examine the role of scale. We find that partisan-neutral maps rarely give seats proportional to votes, and that making the district size smaller tends to make it even harder to find a proportional map. This preprint was prepared as a chapter in the forthcoming edited volume Political Geometry, an interdisciplinary collection of essays on redistricting. (mggg.org/gerrybook)