Districting that minimizes partisan bias

The shapes of electoral districts determine how votes translate into seats. When districts favor certain political parties, electoral results can be disproportionate and the public may lose faith in the political process. Disagreement about appropriate district shapes is subjective, rarely resolved, and often leads to lawsuits. Previously, many authors have called for objective districting criteria. We offer a novel synthesis of models that enables the proactive comparison of district maps, by relating a planar graph partition, the single-member plurality rule, the maximin decision rule, and any agreed measure of partisan bias with a territorial map and historical vote results. Historical vote totals avoid the complexity and uncertainty associated with counterfactual models of vote swing. Districting plans could be objectively compared on such criteria as party proportionality or compact shape to reject plans with worse bias. Objective tools to reduce partisan bias in district maps could boost collaborative participation, increase perceptions of fairness and justice, and reduce costs.

History of the Landscape and Rural Territory among the Indigenous Families of Paposo and Taltal on the Atacama Desert Coast

Recent ethnographic research undertaken with coastal inhabitants of the Taltal district on the Andean coast of South America facilitates corroboration of the development of a shared territorial map, with the extended family as a basic nucleus. These families, notwithstanding centuries of the imposition of the Encomienda system and mining industry, have historically occupied the rural territory from the housing/productive space of the majada, whose settlement led to a strong system of alliances predating the early historical period. The tracing of local family networks is presented here from the Almendares family registry, currently one of the groups defined as Changos or Camanchacos.

Upholding Filipino nationhood: The debate over Mindanao in the Philippine Legislature, 1907–1913

Christian Filipino legislators in the bicameral US civil administration played a hitherto unacknowledged role in pushing for the colonisation of Mindanao, as part of the Philippines, by proposing a series of Assembly bills (between 1907 to 1913) aimed at establishing migrant farming colonies on Mindanao. This legislative process was fuelled by anger over the unequal power relations between the Filipino-dominated Assembly and the American-dominated Commission, as well as rivalry between resident Christian Filipino leaders versus the American military government, business interests and some Muslim datus in Mindanao itself for control over its land and resources. Focusing on the motives and intentions of the bills' drafters, this study concludes that despite it being a Spanish legacy, the Christian Filipino elite's territorial map — emphasising the integrity of a nation comprising Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao — provided the basis for their claim of Philippine sovereignty over Mindanao.

The Earldoms Under Edward I

I do not propose to lay before you to-night any new theory of the constitutional position of the earldoms under Edward I. My purpose is political rather than constitutional, and, where it is not political, biographical and topographical. I wish to attempt the task of describing simply and clearly what were the number and nature of the earldoms under Edward I., with what great houses they were connected, in what districts their strength mostly lay, what manner of men the earls themselves were, and in what relations they stood to the king. I fear that I have no novelty to bring forward. The details that I shall use will come nearly all from very obvious sources, such as the printed Calendars of Post Mortem Inquests, Dugdale's ‘Baronage,’ the Lords' ‘Reports on the dignity of a Peer,’ and the ordinary chronicles and printed records of the time. Many of my facts I came across in a task that has occupied me a good deal lately, and which I have found to be by no means an easy one. I have been trying to construct a territorial map of England under Edward I., with the special view of finding out in what districts lay the power of the chief baronial houses. My excuse for laying my facts before you is that, however trite and dull they may seem, they are not always known by those who might be expected to know them. When lecturers and text-book writers—to say nothing of more serious authors—are still sometimes content to repeat the grossest inaccuracies as to the power and position of the greater nobles—when the standard historical atlas makes the ‘Grafschaft Oxford’ the ‘Gebiet der Vere,’ and the ‘Grafschaft Westmoreland’ the ‘Gebiet der Nevill,’ the elementary truths that I wish to drive home cannot be said to have obtained very general acceptance.