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

TL;DR

This study analyzes how political geography influences districting outcomes in Pennsylvania, revealing that neutral maps rarely produce proportional representation and smaller districts exacerbate this issue.

Contribution

It provides a detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of districting effects in Pennsylvania, emphasizing the impact of scale on partisan fairness.

Findings

Partisan-neutral maps rarely produce proportional seats.

Reducing district size makes proportional mapping more difficult.

Political geography significantly tilts electoral outcomes.

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)