In 2021, the United States performs its decennial process of drawing legislative districts. I, for one, have been very concerned about how this process will go and rather than sit by and let it happen, I want to be involved. This is why I am applying to the Virginia Redistricting Commission.
To that effect, here is my statement:
I feel that I would be an instrumental member of Virginia’s 2021 Redistricting Commission. I am a Progressive with a Conservative relations including members of my very close family. I also have a number of conservative friends. I feel being able to talk to the other party is key to choosing fair districts. I believe in ending Gerrymandering and stopping the practice of Packing and Cracking. I also am an ardent supporter of the Voting Rights Act and want to make sure our General Assembly and Congressional Delegation reflect the basic makeup of the citizenry of Virginia.
This can be accomplished by making sure some districts are biased toward those protected groups while avoiding packing too many and diluting voting power overall. I am a firm believer in the compactness and political efficiency of legislative districts. Compactness is just the perimeter divided by 4π times the area of a district with the fraction being the compactness measure, and 1.00 (100%) is perfectly compact. I also want to use political efficiency to choose our districts. Efficient districts are competitive districts. And the safer a seat, the more wasted votes on that seat. Any vote beyond the minimum needed to win is a wasted vote and I want all our districts to be as politically efficient as possible and waste as few votes as possible.
I am a software engineer and I know that with these 3 scoring algorithms weighted VRA above Efficiency above Compactness, and trying to get the best score overall, that a program can generate perfect, fair, and equal districts using machine learning and game theory. I also want to follow the 12-year rule to bias the result. If we look at the last 16 state-wide elections over the 12-year period from 2009–2020, we expect our House of Delegates to be 51 Democrats, 48 Republicans, and 1 Independent (perhaps Libertarian). Though districts of pure third party would be difficult, a split of about 51/48 ±1 seat does align well with the will of the Virginia people and should be an idea we espouse as a board. I’m here to make sure our board follows these ideals and I know I will be a very valuable member of the committee. I look forward to joining the team.
Application for Service on the Virginia Redistricting Commission, Jeffrey C. Jacobs
Please note, that I have redacted the list of conservative family members I have. I do list them in the application but wish to maintain their privacy as Trump voters.
EDIT 2020-12-05: I spoke to some of my family and we agreed that by changing the text to what’s above I could share with you the full text from my application. That said, there is something I am still considering adding of a personal nature.
In any case, I don’t know when I would have time to write such a program, but I know how I would do it and I would love the opportunity to try!
One of the most important issues in the age of SARS-CoV-2 is voting access when polling places are such potential vectors for disease. Last week, I was past of a phone town hall with State Senator Barbara Favola. I was very happy to learn that Governor Ralph Northam is considering holding a special session of the General Assembly this September to ask the them to vote on universal vote-by-mail. This is something Virginia needs! After all, it already works very well in Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado, and Hawaii.
Delegate Price agrees. She has stood with me on a number of other important non-partisan voting rights bills, such as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and two bills to develop a non-partisan way of generating legislative districts. Another bill would have set up a nonpartisan redistricting commission. The committee would have begun as soon as one July, to start the process of determining the 2021 districts. Unfortunately, that bill failed. However, she was able to pass legislation which made most forms of packing and cracking illegal while still protecting the spirit of the Voting Rights Act.
Now it remains to see if we can give Virginia a more streamlined vote-by-mail process. The main issue is to remove the onerous signature requirement. Also, as Tran points out, we need to make sure folks who are visually impaired can vote. If people change residences without informing the Commonwealth, they shouldn’t be dropped from the voting rolls. We also need to consider people who are just used to voting in person on election day. One solution is to maintain opened polling locations on election day, but by default allow everyone to vote-by-mail with no signature nor an excuse, and not dropping anyone because the voting invitation mail bounces.
Or, if we do still need a signature, I suppose I could ask my voting buddy Rachel to take care of mine, as I take care of hers.
I’m live right now with Delegate Cia Price and Tram Nguyen, Co-executive Director of New Virginia Majority, to talk…
Jesse goes on to point out how Compacts only need Congressional Review when they violate Federal Supremacy. This is one of the major arguments we face when defending the NPVIC. Along with the misconception that in most states where are not battlegrounds, your vote doesn’t count now, so under the compact you aren’t decreasing the power of your state, you’re increasing the power of your state’s voters.
Another good point is how non-partisan this issue is. When you put all your eggs in one proverbial basket of battleground states, you end up with a system that more subject to the whim rather than reflecting the will of the nation as a whole. We know, for example, that voter turnout for President is up to 11% higher in battleground states than it is in non-battleground states.
Finally, we touched on the tangential issue of Ranked Choice Voting. The thing that folks don’t understand is any issue with the Spoiler Effect inherent in the NPVIC exists in the Electoral College as well. The NPIC isn’t trying to remedy that issue and that issue is much better approached by promoting Ranked Choice Voting as well as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact for the reasons Jesse so eloquently outlines.
I greatly admire Jesse for making the effort to write a wonderful book and to take the time to speak with Eileen. He and I may disagree on how best to end Gerrymandering in Virginia, but I’ll save that argument for another day. Right now, let’s work together to ensure One Person, One Vote where Every Vote is Equal. Ask your state governments to pass the NPVIC today.
The truth, though, is that the President has no power to cancel the election. That power rests purly in the hands of the Congress.
Congress, not the president, has the power to move Election Day. And even if Congress did postpone the vote, the Constitution would terminate Trump’s term on Jan. 20, 2021.
Stern, Mark Joseph. “Trump Can’t Cancel the Election. But States Could Do It for Him.” Slate 13 March 2020.
Further, having spend over a decade working for the U.S. Military, I can guarantee the loyalty of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are to the Republic, and not to any individual President. Should any President, Democrat or Republican, refuse to leave office were someone new duly appointed on, be it 20 January 2021, 20 January 2025, or any appropriate day of power transition in the future, then the U.S. Military would remove the obstinate President from office, with force, if necessary. Such a military Coup d’État would be unheard of in American history, but would doubtlessly just be a bump in the smooth transition of power as the Military is expected to immediately cede power to the duly elected next President. Indeed, if a President refuses to leave office, it behooves the winner of the most recent election to beseech the Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid in the removal of the incalcitrant, losing President, to make sure he or she leaves office and that the newly elected President is installed.
All that said, it seems to me insane to consider any President, including the current occupant of our highest office wouldn’t leave come 20 January upon losing the prior election by the Electoral College. And I hope my readers know I stand firmly on the side of Republican Democracy. It’s not a question of party for me, it’s a question of whoever wins the election should take office.
the Constitution does not require states to assign their electors on the basis of the statewide vote. It does not even require a statewide vote. Rather, it explains that each state “shall appoint” its electors “in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” In other words, each state legislature gets to decide how electors are appointed—and, by extension, who gets their votes.
Stern, Mark Joseph. “Trump Can’t Cancel the Election. But States Could Do It for Him.” Slate 13 March 2020.
The rub comes if states exercise their option, under Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 2—as amended—state legislatures are allowed to appoint electors by any means they see fit. They can vote to select electors, as some states did originally, not having the infrastructure to hold an election. They can hold an election and assign electors proportionally, as they did in the early in the Republic. They can have winner-take-all (plurality) elections. They can have direct election of electors, as Alabama did in 1960. They can even allow two electors to be chosen by state-wide Plurality and the rest chosen by potentially Gerrymandered Congressional District plurality, such as in Maine and Nebraska. The Constitution says nothing about how Electors are selected, it only says states legislatures get to chose their own method.
[The President] himself could not cancel the entire presidential election. But he could ask these GOP-dominated legislatures to cancel their statewide presidential elections and assign their electors to him. It’s doubtful that we will face this situation in November. But imagine a worst-case scenario: The election is approaching, and the coronavirus remains rampant in our communities. States are unsure whether they have the personnel and resources to hold an election. Congress has failed to mandate no-excuse absentee balloting, and many states have declined to implement it. Or the postal service is so hard hit that it cannot reliably carry ballots to and from voters’ residences. It’s not difficult to envision [The President]’s allies in state legislatures assigning their states’ electoral votes to the president, insisting that these dire circumstances justify pulling a constitutional fire alarm.
Stern, Mark Joseph. “Trump Can’t Cancel the Election. But States Could Do It for Him.” Slate 13 March 2020.
What the article fails to mention is that each state’s legislature operates under different rules. In Maryland and Virginia, for instance, their General Assemblies have strict deadlines before 1 July to finish conducting all legislative business. The only way new legislation can be adopted is from a direct order of the Governor, meaning for a state to cancel its election after 1 July, it would have to do so with the consent of its Governor and its Legislature. And while there are a number of state legislatures in single-party hands through Gerrymandering, the Governors are elected by popular vote and thus is not prone to Gerrymandering.
So while SARS-CoV-2 may cause difficult for voting, it’s doubtful any major legislature is going to cancel the election in 2020 due to the virus. However, let’s entertain that possibility for a moment.
state legislatures can appoint electors—the human beings themselves—but cannot then require them to vote for a particular candidate, or punish them if they do not. It seems unlikely that the court will grant “faithless electors” the ability to buck state legislatures and cast rogue votes.
Stern, Mark Joseph. “Trump Can’t Cancel the Election. But States Could Do It for Him.” Slate 13 March 2020.
Here is where the article puts a bit too much faith in faithless electors. The truth is, the way electors are chosen in all states in 2020 is through a party-line slate. What happens is the election happens (or the state legislature directs), the states Secretaries of State (where such office exists) then contact the party of the winning candidate who then provide the state with a slate of electors. If the Democrat wins, the state selects the slate of electors provided by the Democratic Party, if the Republican wins, the state selects the slate of electors provided by the Republican Party. It’s very unlikely parties would select from amongst their party faithful someone who was not loyal to the candidate. And sticking pipedream hopes that even if Faithless Electors are preserved—as the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to rule—it’s unlikely any elector will be voting against their party or candidate.
Regardless of any SCOTUS decision, Faithless Electors will continue to be rare. If a bunch of state legislatures do decide the cancel the election of 3 November, it’s unlikely that you can count of faithlessness to give you any surprise outcome. While that may be a fear in terms of legislatures reverting to the original party appointment of electors without election, which would be a tragedy to our Democratic Republic, there is another way that would, in fact, increase our Democratic Reublican ideals.
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement between the signatory state such that, if the combined electoral college count of signatory states is 270, then these states will tabulate their popular votes, and combine those popular votes with the votes of all the other states in our American Union, and, based on the winner nationally, the Secretaries of State then select the slate of electors provided by the party of the candidate who won the National Popular Vote. Effectively, the person with the most votes nationally will become the next President of the United States.
Just as legislatures could cancel elections, they can also join the NPVIC and ensure that the winner of the popular vote is the winner of the national election, making this nation a more Democratic Republic, not less.
This isn’t a partisan issue. In 2004, a Republican almost lost the Electoral College despite winning the Popular Vote. This isn’t an issue of the Popular Vote advantaging one party over the other. Unfortunately, 2016 has blinded people to that fact. In truth, when it’s known long before the election how most states will vote, it concentrates all the power in a number of battleground states which are so close one could literally flip a coin to determine their outcome. Such concentrated power is against the will of the Framers. It disadvantages both big and small states alike, both rural and urban states alike. It helps no-one unless you happen to live in a Battleground. It’s not advantaging any party, it’s just the coin flipped heads a number of times. It will flip tails. We don’t know when, but it will. It could indeed be as soon as 2020.
Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 2 is a double-edged sword. It allows legislatures to take the power from the people, and it also allows them to grant it to all Americans, leveling out the playing field so that, no matter where you live, your vote will count as much as any other American.
We should have One Person, One Vote where Every Vote is Equal. Ask your state governments to pass the NPVIC today.
The game was rather fun and I played for the Conservative side just because often times when I am debating the NPVIC I debate it from the Conservative perspective to better explain it to folks who lean that way.
The reason we were playing was to introduce the issues with Virginia HJ71, which allows a party line vote to veto the committee maps for districts and send it to the Virginia Supreme Court with no constitutional protections against Gerrymandering. Mark’s bills to give us a better options were merged into Delegate Cia Price‘s bills HB1256 and HB1255, which set up a citizen’s committee and also provide Gerrymandering protections. Both bills will be before the Virginia Senate Privileges and Elections Committee tomorrow. I would have liked to attend that meeting, especially as HB177 is on the Docket as well, which is the NPVIC bill, but it’s unlikely HB177 will be heard tomorrow and I have some work things I need to take care of.
In any case, I very much enjoy the game I played with Mark moderating and am considering buying the game for myself.
Delegate Mark Levine coaches me on playing Mapmaker: The Gerrymandering Game
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