Sorry I can't give the political info

It may be of interest that each district has about 723,000 people.

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by: andgarden @ Sat May 30, 2009 at 22:48:59 PM UTC

I love Dave's Redistricting App

I'm pretty sure the numbers are uploaded by county and apportioned to the blocks by the population they had in 2000. That is somewhat limited because you get large rapidly growing counties like Maricopa in Arizona in which some parts have exploded out of the nowhere and others are comparatively stagnant, yet this isn't really demonstrated.

Pretty good work overall. The CW is that Chris Smith doesn't really live in Trenton anyway, so you could probably move Mercer County all the way into the 3rd to help Adler, though your 4th may have a more conservative chunk of the county.

22, Democrat, AZ-01
Peace. Love. Gabby.

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by: Nico @ Sat May 30, 2009 at 23:24:45 PM UTC

I don't know where any

of the incumbents live, so this whole thing was a little tricky. I was actually inclined to move all of Ocean county into the 4th, but I was going for a minimalist map.

If I had political data, I would have tried to knock off another Republican.

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by: andgarden @ Sat May 30, 2009 at 23:34:05 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I just installed

Dave's app on my Mac and am having trouble figuring out where to find it now that I've installed it!

20 years old, male, GA-12 (home), GA-10 (school); previously lived in CA-29, CA-28, CA-23, IL-06, IL-14, GA-01.

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by: Nathaniel90 @ Sun May 31, 2009 at 00:07:13 AM UTC

it's a web app

you probably installed Silverlight.  

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by: andgarden @ Sun May 31, 2009 at 00:11:18 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

How do you save your maps?

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

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by: TheUnknown285 @ Sun May 31, 2009 at 00:23:01 AM UTC

I took screen shots

I figure this is all illustrative anyway.  

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by: andgarden @ Sun May 31, 2009 at 00:34:45 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

A good idea

is to punch the "Print Screen" key and then paste to Paint.

My blog
Twitter
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28, New Democrat, Female, TX-03 (hometown CA-26)

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by: californianintexas @ Sun May 31, 2009 at 01:47:32 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

If you're using a Mac

You can hold down Command-Shift-4 and get crosshairs to choose which part of the screen you want to grab.  

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by: andgarden @ Sun May 31, 2009 at 01:55:50 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

If your Windows box has Microsoft OneNote installed

You can do WindowsButton-s, then select the portion of the screen to clip into OneNote.

Note, the clipping may go into OneNote and/or onto the clipboard, depending on that applications's settings...if it goes into OneNote, it'll open the application & let you copy/paste it from there.

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by: JimM @ Sun May 31, 2009 at 22:35:36 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I drew beautiful maps for Florida and Georgia

last night and this morning, and can't open them because I don't use Windows and so can't use the 2JPG.exe thing. I hope these aren't lost!

20 years old, male, GA-12 (home), GA-10 (school); previously lived in CA-29, CA-28, CA-23, IL-06, IL-14, GA-01.

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by: Nathaniel90 @ Sun May 31, 2009 at 18:02:56 PM UTC

You should have taken screen shots.

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by: andgarden @ Sun May 31, 2009 at 18:03:38 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Live and learn!

20 years old, male, GA-12 (home), GA-10 (school); previously lived in CA-29, CA-28, CA-23, IL-06, IL-14, GA-01.

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by: Nathaniel90 @ Sun May 31, 2009 at 21:26:30 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yup

Remember, on the Mac you hold down command-shift-4 and get a dragable crosshatch.  

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by: andgarden @ Sun May 31, 2009 at 21:45:17 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Ok got the screen shots...

Now how do I insert them into a diary?

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by: fitchfan28 @ Tue Jun 02, 2009 at 05:49:03 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

You probably have to upload them to Photobucket and link to them

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

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by: TheUnknown285 @ Tue Jun 02, 2009 at 06:24:44 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Image Shack worked for me

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by: andgarden @ Tue Jun 02, 2009 at 06:31:58 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Cool thanks

I'll have them up soon

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by: fitchfan28 @ Tue Jun 02, 2009 at 17:58:20 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The help page has help on this...

They're buried inside junk folders, and hard to find, but Dave put how to find them on his application help page.  I just found the redistricting app myself, and all of a sudden my free time is full-on swingnut again. XD  I've already got "rough drafts" of the sunbelt states out so far, and am tweaking Texas to try and fit my good government and partisan Democratic sensibilities... yeah, it's tough!

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by: BigTentProgressive @ Mon Jun 01, 2009 at 21:48:33 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

nice software

The data is still a little incomplete but it's great for the redistricting process.
If there is a concentration of black population in eastern Morris County then I have learned something new about Morris County.
I like your CD's, especially in the north. Some of the tentacles are hard to understand. I think it would be better if CD3 was pulled completely out of Ocean County and CD12 was pulled out of Monmouth County.

26, male, Dem, NJ-12

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by: duffman @ Mon Jun 01, 2009 at 02:31:18 AM UTC

The tentacles of the 8th and the 10th

into Morris County serve two purposes. 1) to achieve population equity in the two districts, and 2) to "eat" chunks of the old 11th, which I targeted for elimination. My guess is that those tentacles are quite white and fairly Republican. But the solidly Democratic nature of the rest of the 8th and the 10th makes the tentacles politically irrelevant.

The central districts of 3, 4, and 12 were the most difficult to draw, mostly because they all, to some degree, had to shift north--a reflection of the loss of a northern district. As I wrote, the Democratic incumbent I expect to be least happy is Rush Holt. I agree that his district could be made more Democratic. So, probably could the 3rd.

I drew this map starting from the north, and ran into trouble in the center. Last night I started on another effort from the south, and encountered even more trouble when I tried to build a new 4th.

The software could be very much improved if a selection of existing districts could be drawn in place and assigned new numbers. It would be easier to deal with what's left over, I think.  

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by: andgarden @ Mon Jun 01, 2009 at 02:58:18 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Here's my latest attempt

It's based on my original redistricting plan but I updated it for the updated census data.
I started in the south and worked north. I find it's easier that way because there are fewer districts in the south.
The Democratic incumbent who will be least happy with this plan will be Steve Rothman. Holt and Adler will be very happy with it.
This may be considered a cop out, but I think the new 4th will involve Chris Smith moving out of Mercer County. That became inevitable when Adler won the 3rd, requiring the 3rd to become more Democratic. The rest of them get to stay put.

26, male, Dem, NJ-12

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by: duffman @ Mon Jun 01, 2009 at 05:06:59 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yours is clearly cleaner looking than mine

I think your issue is going to be in the north. I'm concerned that the 8th and 9th don't preserve minority-majority status (though actually they don't look much different than my 10th and 11th).

My concern is that the current 3 N NJ Republicans find a way to win in 3 of your 7/10/11/12. The 11th is a particular concern.  

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by: andgarden @ Mon Jun 01, 2009 at 05:35:43 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

the reason for that

I remember reading somewhere (probably Blue Jersey) that the mayor of Jersey City wants cities to stay together in redistricting, so that big cities would have more influence in Congress. I thought it was an interesting idea so I made an entire redistricting map without breaking apart any municipalities. Population equality is pretty good, all are within 1% and most are with 0.5%.

The 8th CD is 48% black, the best I could do. The only way to get 50% is by splitting cities. I'm sure in the real redistricting plan parts of Newark, Jersey City and Elizabeth will be in both districts.

The 11th is more Democratic than it looks. 40% of its population is in Passaic/Clifton/Paterson. Both the 10th and the 11th are about D+3 and they have entrenched incumbents. Hopefully this would get the people in the northern part of these districts used to voting for Democrats. I also hope the changing demographics will eventually give Democrats a chance to win the 7th.

26, male, Dem, NJ-12

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by: duffman @ Mon Jun 01, 2009 at 06:41:02 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Oh, and I love my messy lines

Messy lines say to me that some people were accommodated and others got screwed.  

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by: andgarden @ Mon Jun 01, 2009 at 05:36:37 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

you can do that with clean lines too

But clean lines look more fair and voters like that.
When the Newark district has arms reaching into Morris County it's obvious you're trying to bury Republican votes in a Democratic district, and it won't get through the state leg. But when the liberal Bergen district stretches all the way to the northern border, it's less obvious you're trying to bury Republican votes, and more likely to get through the state leg.

26, male, Dem, NJ-12

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by: duffman @ Mon Jun 01, 2009 at 06:51:20 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Well, the state legislature has nothing to do with it

A bipartisan panel will pass a compromise map.

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by: andgarden @ Mon Jun 01, 2009 at 13:34:30 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Actually, the state legislature appoints almost all of the panel

But you're right, it is bipartisan. We're probably heading for incumbent protection plan, maybe even a fair fight D v R district. Rush Holt v Leonard Lance, anyone? Maybe Bill Pascrell v Rodney Frelinghuysen?

22, Democrat, AZ-01
Peace. Love. Gabby.

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by: Nico @ Tue Jun 02, 2009 at 07:37:39 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Rush would be Lance, right?

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

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by: TheUnknown285 @ Tue Jun 02, 2009 at 09:18:13 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Depends on how the district looks

But a fair fight district especially around Princeton would easily favor Holt.

30, male, Democratic, CO-01

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by: Tiger in BlueDenver @ Tue Jun 02, 2009 at 22:31:05 PM UTC

[ Parent ]