Members of the media who may have questions during before or after the meeting should direct those questions to Edward woods, the third Executive Director of the commission at Woods e three@michigan.gov. For the public watching in the public record, I will turn to the Department of State to take note of the commissioners present.
Morning commissioners please say present when I call your name if you are attending the meeting remotely please announce during roll call you are attending the meeting remotely and unless your absence is due to military duty, announce your physical location by stating the county, city, township or village and the state from which you are attending the meeting remotely. I'll begin alphabetically with Commissioner Elaine Andrade. Present from Wayne County, Michigan. Commissioner Callahan present from Mexico Commissioner curry, present and attended remotely from Detroit Michigan. Center IID present
remotely attending from Detroit, Michigan.
And missioner Callum
morning attending remotely from Detroit Michigan Center Lange attending remotely from Osceola County, Michigan,
Commissioner lattes,
President attending from grandparent's County
Commissioner Muldoon, President from Carleton Michigan Commissioner Orton
as an attending remotely from Battle Creek Michigan.
Center is the tele
President attending remotely from Wayne County, Michigan. Commissioner Veillette present
attending remotely from Highland Township Michigan, Commissioner
Wagner and Commissioner Weiss as an attending remotely from Saginaw Township, Saginaw, Michigan. And Commissioner Lang. I see that your hand is up. Do you have a question during roll?
Yes, I received a message that Commissioner Wagner still has not received that link. Is it okay if I just forward her mind to see if that goes through and then you can correct the name when she's able to log on? Absolutely.
Thank you Commissioner Lang and I will note for the record when Commissioner Wagner has joined but chair right now you do have a commissioner a quorum with 12 commissioners present.
Thank you Miss sharp
will now move to adopt the agenda. As a reminder, the public watching you can view the agenda@www.michigan.gov slash m IC rC. Is there a motion to approve the agenda?
I move we approve the agenda as presented.
Second.
We have a motion by Commissioner lett and a second by Commissioner Weiss. I do have one amendment I'd like to make now that we're in discussion. The minutes for the meeting are not ready to be adopted yet. So I request that we amend the agenda to remove items seven minutes from May 12. That can was that that second? rational way. Thank you, Miss Liang. So we have an amendment to the agenda to take off. Item seven minutes may second made by myself and seconded by Commissioner lane. Is there any discussion on the amendment? Okay, all those in favor please raise your hand and say Aye Aye. Any opposed? The eyes have it and the motion is amended. We will now move to adopt the agenda as amended. Motion by Commissioner lett. Seconded by Commissioner Weiss is there any further discussion on the original motion? Seeing none, we will move to vote. All those in favor. Please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The eyes have it and the agenda is adopted. Without objection we will begin the public comment portion pertaining to agenda topics of today's meeting. Is there any objection commissioners? Seeing none, we will move forward. Individuals who have signed up and indicated they would like to provide a live remote public comment to the Commission will now be allowed. I will call your name and our staff will unmute you if you are on a computer. You will be prompted by the Zoom app to unmute your microphone and speak. If you are on the phone or voice will say the host wants you to speak and prompt you to press star six to unmute. I will call you by your name or the last four digits of your phone number. Please know if you're experiencing technical or audio issues or we do not hear from you for three to five seconds. We will move on to the next person in line and return to you when they are done speaking. If your audio still does not work, you can email redistricting@michigan.gov and we will help you troubleshoot so you can participate during the next public comment period at a later meeting. Today you will have 90 seconds to address the commission and please conclude your remarks when the timer goes off. We have seven folks who have signed up to give public comment today. The first being Mr. James gallon.
Chair before we do that I do see that Commissioner Wagner is present I'm going to work to rename rename her now but Commissioner Wagner Can you please tell us where you're joining remotely from?
I am joining remotely from Eaton Township.
Thank you very much. Commissioner Wagner. Okay. I will go ahead and begin public comment with James gallon. Thank you Chair.
Thank you and welcome Commissioner Wagner.
Not in service for you here
thank you James gallon mark cat. These are opinions. Welcome to the May 16 version of the wizards of Oz with the Detroit Michigan United States in America as the Emerald City first we saw the MICR C's presiding officers exposed as the wizards of Oz by Toto for wrongfully pulling the strings to ensure that the other members continue to struggle to understand the Robert's Rules enough to protect themselves as instructed by Mike Brady. Second, your magic guy is not magic. It's science based. It literally slows you down in the picture so we can see your closed session electronic communications. During this public meeting. It looks like winks and nods from where I'm sitting. Now a quote from Robert's Rules of Order page 28 Chapter three paragraph 34. Quote, if the chair makes a mistake and assigns the floor to the wrong person, when a preference in recognition was timely claimed, his attention can be called by point of order, and he must immediately correct the error. That is like the petition the tele did about think facilitating issues before there before the commission that was in direct contradiction to the rules. So this is a tell us point of order is when the chairs customary practices established without a vote falls to the ground and yields to the approved parliamentary law manual Robert's Rules of Order as Mike Brady instructed at your first meeting, the yellow brick road that you built Mr. Eat is crumbling right here in front of God and everybody
thank you Mr. Gala. We appreciate your comments. Next to speak is Kelly Goldberg.
Good morning, thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you and I appreciate the tireless work. You've all done, you know very complicated time. I was just going to give kind of boilerplate remark but I I have to say your work is more important than ever. As we watch the aftermath of the near assassination of the Soga Slovakian government leader. democracy matters and having people believe that their vote is protected and counts and hasn't. You know, they haven't been assigned to an area where their vote will have less impact and meaning I'm Jewish by choice. I grew up in northwest Detroit and a diverse neighborhood. I've lived in Michigan all my life. And I would just urge you to look at the region's redistricting maps with the highest partisan fairness scores because that is at the core of whether people feel they are being represented or not. And those maps are 349 and 350, and 371 and 376. And I again, thank you. I know this has not been easy and you've had to listen to a lot of people who wants to throw you off course and I just ask you to stay the course and stay true to the mission of protecting our votes and giving everyone the most representation possible. Thank you.
Chair, can we have her repeat the numbers that she said she just said I'm kind of fast.
Oh, certainly 349 and 350 and 371 and 376. The Jewish community is very diverse and not everyone belongs to a temple or a synagogue. There are many people who are merely culturally Jewish and not affiliated with an obvious Jewish institution. So we just don't want to be just lumped into one one district so thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miss Goldberg. We do have a partisan fairness analysis taking place today. I hope you tune in for that. Next up to speak is Gary Moore.
Can you hear me?
We can Good morning Mr. Morrow.
Good morning to you, commission. And Chairman. I'm just responding to a comment that one or maybe more commissioners made and agreed to or expressed agreement with yesterday about having a classification scheme for the various maps. I'm glad there's as the great diversity that you have of maps but it does kind of create the desire to put them in smaller groups and be able to compare them so I would suggest these four items. The for classifying the maps. First District One, does it stick to the river or wrap around Dearborn or perhaps even head towards Ferndale. The second one would be the Lake St. Clair lake shore. Is it in one or two districts? The third one would be how many districts have any piece of the city of Detroit and the fourth and final one would be kind of an unusual one, but I think it works is I've played around with this are no VI and Lavonia those two cities substantially in the same district. And if you take those four variables and build some groups with that I think you'll be there. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Morehead. Next up to speak is Norman Clements
participant does not present okay.
That brings us to Kermit Williams.
Hello, good morning. Good morning. First of all, let me thank the commission for all the work that you have been doing. I'm currently Williams former city council president in the city of Pontiac, we worked really hard on the original state senate maps, which include us with Southfield and part of Detroit. I'm very disheartened with our community of interests, possibly going to Rochester Rochester Hills, with the addition of Waterford. I think that the district that we currently have stood up not only to the federal lawsuit, but shouldn't be changed. And so I understand that you guys are looking at partisan fairness. But one of the things is possible representation that we have and so the way that the maps are crafted, we may not have any representation from Pontiac going forward, even though that might be a competitive seat with Rochester and Rochester Hills being a part but it will be packing in our votes in a way that we don't see a way going forward. So I would encourage you to keep us with Southfield. If you look at the economic numbers. There's much more in line as communities of interest than it is going west versus going south.
Thank you, Mr. Williams. We comments.
Next up to speak is Anthony Skinner. Well
good morning Michigan independent citizens redistricting commission joining remotely from Detroit, Michigan and I've looked at most of the maps and not too crazy about honestly the collaborative ones, but uh, I like the lane Wagner and satella maps. I think they're all right. And you really just want to don't have too many comments about the maps until I hear these analyses, too, but I guess we'll have to put that off till the next meeting. And yeah, another thing I've heard about I've heard this phrase come up with Detroit centric districts, which I think is a good thing to look at, but also be interesting just to note how many districts contain a part of Detroit at all in any given map, you know, not centric, but if it has even just a little part, you know, you say, maybe it's in six districts, five districts in this map. And one thing I was, well that's come up is the naming convention. And well, you have the technical names, you know, oh 509 24 That tells you what day The map was made on. And version three, let's say it says, okay, it was the third map worked on May 9, or whatever. But it's like a technical name and it's fine to have that we wanted to be helpful if we had a name that group them together that showed where they came from. And I had a suggestion for that you made the pumpkin map and then you change it you could name the next one that Pelican map starts to see they both start with P so you know it came from the pumpkin map, but didn't want to do that. So now we're confused.
Thank you, Mr. Skinner. Well the final speaker we have today is Adam Butler.
That participant is not present. Okay.
Well, that concludes today's public comment. Please feel free to email public comments. To the commission at redistricting@michigan.gov or use our public comment portal that is posted on the website and found at Michigan dash mapping.org. We appreciate everyone who offers public comments in whatever way you choose. And invite you to keep sharing your thoughts. Next on the agenda is Item five A vra analysis. If there is no objection, I will ask vra counsel Mark Braden to facilitate this item. Is there any objection commissioners?
Hearing none, Mr. Braden, the floor is yours. Please proceed.
Thank you and good morning, everyone. As a starting point, since we were successful last time with the House plan on getting approval of the compliance with the VRA by the Special Master Dr. Grafman and by the court. We I intend to follow that same procedure with the Senate plan and not make any changes. And a generalized sense from that since the old cliche is don't mess with success, and I would suggest that cliche we should follow. Basically, the objective so let me just say two or three things I intend to do, and here comes up the inevitable PowerPoint. But I do think PowerPoint does help. I'm going to do first a brief again a brief recap of the Voting Rights Act. We're gonna then review the Senate plans provided to the commission to Dr. Palmer myself. And the purpose of that analysis is to address the opportunity of black voters to elect their representatives of choice to the Michigan Senate. What I won't be doing is offering an opinion on any plans compliance with the Michigan constitutional requirements. I only am offering an opinion of draft plans compliance with the Voting Rights Act. Later following me you will have someone beginning to talk a little bit about very specific provisions of Michigan law, namely the the partisan fairness, but that's not on my platter. The court has specifically directed me to only be involved and advise on compliance with the Voting Rights Act. So let me just do the overview. I know that there's been a lot of presentations done on the Voting Rights Act to the commissioners, but let me just walk through it again, to prove a violation under the of the Voting Rights Act. We have what's called the jingles test from a Thornburg versus jingles case, from the 80s from North Carolina. There are three preconditions for the issue of comparte in the issue of compliance first, do you have a minority group that sufficiently large and reasonably geographically compact to constitute a majority in a reasonably configured district? That minority group must be able to show that it's politically cohesive and a minority must be able to demonstrate that the white majority voters vote sufficiently as a bloc to enable them to regularly defeat the minority preferred candidate.
So
you then move on to what's called the totality of the circumstances is really a question of whether or not the minority community has traditionally gotten its fair share of political power. There are a variety of local issues you can appraise that through but it's just a question Roy up whether or not the overall political situation the totality the set of circumstances, both political and social, show that the process is not equally open to minority voters. So in this where we are right now, there's no genuine issue before this body as to whether or not jingles requires the consideration of the Voting Rights Act for the Senate by the Commission, its experts and the court and the plaintiffs all agree that there's legally significant polarized voting is present in Michigan and in the area under consideration here in the Tri County. area. So you need to adopt plans that comply with the Voting Rights Act. Yeah, and I'm not looking at compliance with the Constitution. I'm looking at whether or not the proposed plans are reasonably configured. And whether race was not impermissibly used in the creation of any plans. The court has told us not to use race and drawing the plans except in a very limited sense, and at the very end of the construction of the plants. So these your process, as I understand it, of drawing the plans for the Senate is similar to what you did or virtually identical to what you did in the house, which meant means that it was a race blind draw that you did not bring up you did not have Kim or John Morgan bring up race on the screens in the drawing process. So race did not dictate how you draw. So what we're looking at here is not how many majority minority districts are drawn. We're not looking at any set racial target. In other words, we don't have a magic number that you have to get to. We don't have a specific number in the process. Our what we're examining here is how many districts are likely to perform with the election of the black candidates. Communities are candidates of choice. It's not a guarantee. We have elections. So no matter how you draw the districts, there's no guarantee of any particular outcome. That's why we have elections. But we do have tools that help us make strong predictions as to whether or not the black candidates the choice of the black communities are likely to win. So this body the commission, can comply with the Voting Rights Act through the creation of majority minority districts, or crossover districts or influence districts. For potential compliance with the Voting Rights Act. That's an option of this commission. This commission gets to use these different approaches to determine whether or not it should adopt a plan. So this is the integration of these ratio issues into the back end of the process where you're already examining plans for all the variety of other issues that you're examining plans for. So let me move on to the next slide. To do this to today, Turman whether we believe the minority community can elect its candidates of choice. We look at elections, we obviously look at census data, but basically we're looking at elections in this particular situation. We're principally looking at primary elections. The court has told us and that's the reason why we're doing the court has told us that in this particular area, the probative issues are addressed in looking at primary elections and non general elections. And I think everyone on this on the commission now understands that issue, because in fact, most of these elections in the general election are not competitive on a partisan basis. So the Democratic candidate is almost always going to win. And that candidate is almost always going to be the choice and the general election of the minority community. We're looking at what the court has told us to look at, which is primary elections. And so we're, we've done something different than what you see in much of the of the litigation around the country on compliance with the Voting Rights Act because of that sort of unique geography and political geography of this area. So we're looking at the primary elections to determine whether or not the minority candidate of choice is likely to win. And again, this analysis we're doing that Dr. Primers designed and, and helped us with is based upon estimates of black and white turnout in the Democratic primary. And we're also looking at the potential Democrat primary pool, but we're looking first at the actual turnout in the Democratic primary. The theory underlying this is pretty straightforward. I think it's difficult to argue that the black community doesn't have an equal opportunity to have it candidates prevail in a Democratic primary, when it's the majority of the people actually showing up to vote. Now that doesn't result in a guarantee of any particular election results. But what we're looking here not at a guarantee of particular election results, but where there's an equal or likely hood of success of the community. It's difficult, I think, to argue that it isn't extremely likely that in a primary election, where the majority of the voters are black, that their preferred candidate is likely to win. And the good news is this is a type of analysis that was accepted by Dr. Rothman and accepted by the court. So I think it provides a firm basis for us going forward. If we can go on to the next one. Here's the meat of it. First of all, here's the general election results, which I think are limited utility to us and the court has has told us the limited utility, which simply shows what we sort of already know which is in the Tri County area. It's going to be difficult for Democrat candidates not to win Almost all the
races. So and so we have the composite score, which is a menu of different races combined together. Sometimes people have difficulty understanding that or being comfortable with it. I have the more simplistic by numbers from 2020 elections, our elections so these this gives you a picture of what we're talking about. What I think is of his next slide is the meat of what we'll need to examine the primary election results. And so, what we're looking at here and we have a hole just like we did last time, we have a series of specific charge with numbers attached to them, which which has been made available to the commissioners and to anybody coming into the system. But the graphics help, especially when we're here as we're talking about a larger number of plants. Basically, the cut to the end I am totally confident that any plan that has four districts where the black electorate has shown up and as the majority of the primary turnout all those districts undoubtedly comply, in my opinion, absent some, some activity that that I'm not aware of. In other words, if there's there are plans here that were drawn, that are not reasonably configured, in the sense that race was used or some other factors were involved that might affect my analysis, but assuming as I do our analysis, that the plans that we were analyzing, were drawn race blind, and are drawn in an effort to be in compliance with the other constitutional provisions that all the plans which have for Democrat primary turnout districts. Certainly it's hard to imagine the successful voting rights claim in those cases. I just can't see that happening. I certainly don't see that happening with this court. I think the courts already told us that that will work. And that's if you look at the overall Tri County, black white breakdown, this is slightly more than proportionality. It's 25%. Of the Tri County electorate is black. This is out of the fifth This is slightly more than 25% of the seats. Now the other plans, which are three seats are a little more complex. It's likely I think that most of them would be viewed as compliance with voting compliant with the Voting Rights Act. But they would require some additional analysis, very specific analysis to the plans. And in my might or might not require some tinkering, very minor tinkering, to potentially create an additional seat now here's the issue that arises here. The reason why I say that the difference between three and four a majority in the Democratic primary turnout can often be very small numbers that in a normal sort of political analysis. The difference between a district where the Democratic primary turnout is 49%. Black versus one that's 51% Black, in the reality of the world is frankly, there isn't much difference, and it's not likely to significantly impact the ability of the black community to control that district and likeness candidates and choice. It's very simple and clear when you have four if you have three, then we have to move further down and be involved in more complex analysis at a lower level. I think most of these probably would work. But that's it's easier to defend for than three for pretty much a walk in the park three requires me to roll up my sleeves and come up with the reason why a work it may simply be that they have only three but the differences are too small to be meaningful in the real world analysis. Or possibly they would you want to look at them and say okay, well can we tinker and make very minor changes based upon race to get to four? I think four, although I won't say it's a magic number. I don't believe it is a magic number four is much easier to defend, because that's over proportional representation, which frankly, I would suggest to you pulls the supports out of any voting rights case that might be brought against this again, so everybody understands. This analysis is based upon plans that I am assuming are reasonably configured. comply with the state's constitutional other constitutional requirements and weren't drawn using race. If those assumptions are incorrect, and we have to revisit these issues, but I assume, and certainly from my watching, although I have to admit that total full time watching deliberations of the commission seems to be accurate in the plans that were considered during the process in the last few weeks. So I am available to answer any questions, since there are so many plans. And I'm will also admit that I'm a little confused by some of the labeling trying to figure out which ones or which will you know any questions you have about a specific plan we'll have to bring up the chart and walk through them and and Matt and Dr. Primer may have to help me out. So So I hope that wasn't too long and wasn't too boring and was at least illuminating the most of the commissioners. Thank you, Mr. Braden. We do have a few questions. Commissioners. Itala. Yeah, there was another batch of maps that were sent over yesterday. They all had the 515 date. Do we have analysis on those as well because I don't see any of them on this list. Um, well, Doctor primer. I don't know the answer to that as Dr. Crump whether he got those they appear on this or we didn't get him sooner not to put them on this list. Yes, I said results ended the day yesterday. I don't think they made it into the slides. There were nine additional plans I think that came in yesterday. Six from the commission I believe, and then three from individual Commissioners. And then we can update those figures. For you all the plan from yesterday that collaborative plan v two had for performing districts under both measures. None of the other ones. Did they all either had three or four or a mix, but we can provide the exact numbers. Okay, thank you. And then I had another question that coloration on that chart. That's just that doesn't have any impact does it like the more purple doesn't mean better districts it just kind of illustration. I just want to clarify that that's accurate. Yeah, it's just that the same color across the two bars is to make it visually easier to compare across both metrics. Okay, thank you. So many plans. That got a little bit clutter. Sure, awesome. Yeah, I was just gonna ask the same thing about the the other maps that we sent in that were sent in yesterday. When can we see the analysis on that they're all available. I'm not sure how materials get distributed to the Commission. The answer is we can figure out some way to get it to you today, John, I'm who I'm trying to think who's actually printing this out who's John, are you are you doing this? If I may speak, I have the chairman, is that okay? Yes, go ahead, please. Okay. So I have the information Dr. Palmer created, you know, which are the spreadsheets with the data that is used to go into making the PowerPoint. And then also there are some reference maps that Dr. Palmer created. So I have that and I can display that if you need that now or later in the process. As far as the the information that went into the PowerPoint, I didn't create the PowerPoint slides, but we do have the base data that will go into creating. I can if it's okay for me to screen share, I can share the most updated version of the plot. I'm about to pull that up right now. Dr. Palmer and I misspoke earlier the origin plan version one from yesterday. Also has for performing districts on both measures.
Bingo
if you look towards the top you'll see the version two sorted sort of an a blue tea all of that. It just alphabetical within each category as performed on both measures as of the Orton map, but for each and then you'll see versions 134 and eight towards the bottom of that chart that came in yesterday as well.
I have to admit that I need either better eyes or a larger screen to lead really read someone Yes. But but I'm hoping that everybody has better eyes or graphics than I do at times here.
And as the process continues if plans are eliminated next week or in later meetings this week, we can start dropping things some of the graph to make it easier to make comparisons I think in the house round. There weren't so many that we had to do that but there's a lot more plans this time
I have a couple questions Mr. Random So first, I'm wondering, what is there a correlation between the composite score you had assigned to have the composite score and the Biden 2020 score before the primary turnout and primary pool score. And I'm wondering is there a correlation between those two scores? It looks like there were some maps there that had 13 but those 13 Some of them are four on here and some of them are three on here
I can probably answer
do I'm just trying to figure it out myself. Yeah.
Um, there's a weak correlation. I think it's, you know, given there's just not that much variation on the Democratic primary turnout of only three or four. There are some maps that are four that do very that are, you know, high on the higher end of the composite. I think that for the most part, the ones that do well on the you know, the highest level than the composites tend to have higher level on turnout as well. But I haven't talked about exact correlation. I can do that if that's useful.
I don't I'm not sure if it's useful or not. I'm trying to determine which number is the most useful for us to look at. In determining you know, there is no magic number but as far okay as three okay. That type of thing.
And I the response to that. In a is my view is four is certainly going to be okay absent some very unusual circumstances which I have trouble imagining where there wouldn't be a claim there on the Voting Rights Act. And three years, I think most of the threes may well be okay. Because they're probably in such a narrow range, that the difference between three and four is actually not particularly meaningful, or could be changed so simply with so few movements of people around to not be meaningful in reality. But that's not for all of them. Certainly. It's much it's more of a reality. Of Defense rather than the real world. Reality of defense is, it's hard to visualize a claim against the four plan. It's not so hard to visualize a claim against the three plan. And some of this sometimes goes down fairly simplistic roads. I don't think that's likely to be with where this court is, especially with the master that's involved. But again, it's just for is pretty much but suspenders and a belt re you might be just dependent upon the suspenders.
Another thing I'm noticing is that a lot of the plans we did first I see a lot on there from like the end of March that first one there's March 24, march 25, march 29. So it seems to be the ones that we did first. You know, a lot of those are four, whereas a lot of the ones we did later are three, in what area of the map turns it from three to four. Is there any particular area or district where that happens?
Mr. Chair,
Commissioner lane, I'm sorry,
I just have a quick question. I want to make sure I'm looking where I need to be looking. You just said maps from March.
I'm sorry, April.
I just want to make sure it wasn't like insane and not seeing it. Thank you.
No, that's my bad. Yeah. You know, I see for 24 for 25 for 29 Some from five seven and some from five nine. think that that's interesting. So it makes me wonder what is the difference here? What areas do we have to look at if we want to sample one of the ones from three up to four?
Mr. Morgan? Yes. I just wanted to point out, Mr. Braden and Dr. Palmer didn't say this in this moment when they were talking. But to your point Commissioner IID the earlier metrics that you were looking at the composite score and the Biden performance were all general election. They said that earlier, but I just wanted to make sure there was no confusion. So even with President Biden's performance that was not an a primary. Those are both general election numbers. That clears that up. Thank you. Yeah,
sorry that that Yeah. I mean, to be candid with you. That's the primary stuff is is more relevant for Dr. Handley consideration. We had it here. It's kind of interesting, but in fact Dr. Handley will be providing you an analysis on your metrics, which are better, frankly, for the overall notion of partisan fairness than these metrics are. The Biden I just give you my opinion that but Biden metrics aren't particularly good. Metrics. You're much better off with other types of metrics and the partisan analysis that said, Everybody likes everybody. Most people understand the Biden metric very simply. And it's the most common the generally used for most people. They just you know, who won who lost for President Biden numbers. Certainly are not really good substitutes for how people vote for the Detroit I mean, the Detroit area, legislative seats. They're somewhat compatible. But they're further apart and some composite number swimming the composite numbers done with some degree of sophistication. So more than you wanted to know probably, so
no, that's very informative. That clears up that issue. Any any thoughts on the other question? I asked on the areas that because it's interesting to me is none of the bathroom John have to none of them have five? They're all either three or four. So I'm wondering what area brings it from three to four? Or is there you know, is there anything we can do there, commissioners Italo?
So
just to quickly answer the question, there is a set of maps that I think will be provided that map each of these plans and show highlight the performing districts and the ones that don't and I think you can make comparisons across that you were to pick a map of Thor and a map with three you can make some visual comparisons across them, but think about those different areas. That would be useful.
We have a slide I don't do we have it for this presentation. We had a slide showing the different percentages of black voters in in different in the different plans in the different categories. I think if you look I there's probably a correlation there. Is that Max the little dot, the dot graphed. I mean, I'm assuming there's going to be a correlation from four to three in the plans that have a lot of 90% and 80% History Yeah, their distribution by plan, that there's probably some degree of coral. I mean, I'm sure to some degree, but it's likely there's some degree that you can find correlation. There. I'm guessing the plans, making guess here the plans that have three are much more likely to have the higher percentage black population districts, the ones that had four probably don't have or have fewer districts above 80% As an example, that don't you know don't take that to the bank as well as as gospel. That's my gut reaction to what that was probably there. Maybe Mr. Morgan or Mr. Brace who I don't see on the line. Might have already Max has some comment on that. Or maybe I've just wasted everybody's time. So
we got a few hands up. I will say I think what was useful when we did this with the, the subset of House plans that we had was y'all had a PDF and you had some districts in blue and some districts in green and that was a lot easier to visually see which areas were compliant and not as compliant, even though I think they were all coming in at the end of the day. But that could be useful to commissioners Atella.
Yeah, I was just gonna say it's, it's,
I think, pretty intuitive. If you have three districts that consist only of Detroit and no other districts pulling into Detroit, you're going to have three. If you have something different as a configuration, you might have four. I mean, I just think that's intuitive and
just look at the maps. It's it's pretty obvious, I think. Thank you,
Mr. Morgan.
I can defer to Kim on this go ahead. I think
Hello, Kim. Welcome
There we go. All right.
Let me the microphone that you're speaking from was echoing
Well, while Kim is getting that sorted, I'll just say we do have the Excel spreadsheets with the data that's behind the PowerPoint. And I think you were used to looking at that. And then we also have some basic maps that illustrate what your request
Okay, let's try come again.
Hello, can you hear me now? There we go. Hello. All right. Sorry about that. My microphone on my computer is not working. So I'm in on the phones. I apologize. On that side. We do have as John mentioned, we have Dr. Palmer's graphs that we have put up on the website. And we have the maps that we have created before. We now have them for each of the Senate plans. And I can share my screen to show some of that information. Let me share screen too. Okay, can you see can you see the screen now?
We see our webpage? Yes.
That is what what I wanted you to start with? Because what we have is if you go down to the mapping comment portal on your webpage, very first one that will bounce into the My districting table where all of the data tables and maps are located. So you see it goes into the state Senate. It has all of the plans. And it has one key component for everybody, both in the public as well as for the commission. It has the plan number that is assigned by the my districting site when we upload the shapefile to the My districting site for everybody. It is assigned a district or a plan number. So 393 And there's the correlation here with the longer name that John has put on the maps that is drawn and most of you recognize, but that's the longer name from that side. What is also there is in plan attachments, if you go plan attachments for any particular plan you will end up seeing right now two different things. But you'll soon see more things than that. So you'll see the population spreadsheet that is generated and you can download that and open that up and it will show you the populations of each of the districts
Okay, so there's the populations, the deviations that are there, on that side. So all of that spreadsheet information is there. That's what you see on the John screen when you're when you're drawing in terms of one person, one vote. And then you also have if we bounce over here the political partisan fairness spreadsheet that is there and it will download that there
and this is the political fairness calculations that are being done right now. Now we do have Dr. Palmer's tables of information. Also and those are going up on the website right now. As well as the maps that we have created. And if I bounce over. Here's the example that we have just for one of the maps there's map 391 and it shows the information that is from Dr. Palmer's tables. Now, Dr. Palmer had created some maps himself, and those had a different set of labels on them compared to what ours do. His head just the percent of the population that is in each of the districts, but our calculations like what we had done before it looks at the primary turnout and whether or not they constitute the majority or minority of the primary turnout, and those are the numbers that you see as labels on the map here. So in this instance we have four seats. That Are you see now seat number eight, district eight is very close, but when the when you look at the primary turnout, it is a one that is effective on that side. So what you have you'll have these maps, and all of these maps like what we did for the house. All of these maps will be up on the website. They were generated by Ryan late last night until like 340 this morning, and he's uploaded them to the to the person that helps staff the websites. They are of course over in India and in a different timezone than we are. So but we're trying to make sure that we've got everybody covered on that side. So all of these maps will be up there on the website later on today. Also. Does anybody have any questions?
I do not see any Mr. Bass.
All right. Sounds good.
Okay,
Mr. Braden, do you have anything else to add?
No, if there should be any specific questions that come up additional questions of course I'm always available when not always but usually available, the properly respond to there anything else that commish would want? And there's we have so many plans, the numbers that we've analyzed, I know that it's limited our ability to sort of get into the weeds the same degree that we did on the house plans on each individual one. But at some stage of course, we'll be able to do that. When else post your comments and additional changes. Thank you. Thank you
and I'll get off and let Lisa get on.
Yep, that is great. Okay, thank you. Thank you. For being here. We appreciate the information and look forward to giving you some more maps and hopefully cutting down a few as well so you can look at a smaller subset. I started dreaming
about them soon here. Okay, take care of bye bye.
Thank you Mr. Raiden. And the whole vra team, Dr. Palmer, and everybody else who chimed in as well. Taylor Thompson. Yes, Thompson.
Okay, next on the agenda is items for consideration. Five B artisan fairness. If there is no objection, I will ask Dr. Lisa Hanley to facilitate this item. Is there any objection commissioners? Hearing none, we'll proceed. Dr. Hamlin Welcome back. The floor is yours.
Morning. You guys have been busy a lot of plans. What I've done is I have created a summary table that lists the partisan fairness scores for all of the completed plans. You'll remember that you can't actually produce fair fairness scores for incomplete plans. So I went through, pulled everything off the website I also got from Ryan the the plans that you did yesterday, and created this summary chart, and I'm gonna do it in excel at this point. I mean, can I share my screen
are you seeing a summary chart? Can you see? See a spreadsheet? Okay. You can't see the whole thing can you
scroll down, okay. So, you will recall that we have four persons fairness scores. We have the lopsided margins the mean, median difference, the efficiency gap, and the seats votes ratio. Now, I had not planned on describing how each of these were calculated. You've heard this enough, but of course, if during your questions you would like me to address that, I would be happy to. But right now, these are the four scores that you've been dealing with all along. And the first thing I would say is that there are more there's more variation across these plans than there were across the state house plans. And the reason for that is in the state house, you had 110 districts. So you were playing with about a 10th of them. And here you have 38 districts and you're playing with about a third of them. So any changes that you make have more of an impact, and I think we talked about that before you even began drawing so you have a wider range in the scores than you did in terms of the state health plan. Another thing to remember, is that sometimes different Gore's point to more perfectly fair plans than other sports. In other words, a plan could score very well on the efficiency gap, but not on the mean, median difference. And that's why these it's good to look at all of these scores at the same time, because they will tell you different things about the points. The one thing that I can tell you in summary is that none of the plans that you've drawn scored as high on any of the measures as the 2012 plan drawn by a Republican legislature. All of these all of these plans score lower than that. Still, what do we have here? I'm going to provide to you because it's gonna be a little hard to see because I've got to scroll down, but in terms of the lopsided margin course, the 2012 plan had a lopsided margin score of 8.6, the State Senate 2020 to plan for 4.7 Here, you're pretty much in that. You're, again, all of them are below 8.6 And the lowest is actually 3.6. In favor of Republicans. In other words, you you're going to can imagine that you can both draw majority minority districts or at least districts that provide minority voters with an opportunity to elect and not have to pull up but in March I just don't think that you're going to get merged that's not me for me.
Okay, um,
we do have a question real quick from
you're muted Commissioner Callahan. Yeah,
no, I was being muted. But at least I think but just to quickly, could you scroll that spreadsheet up just a little bit, that bottom row is cut off and I can't see it. Thank you. That's all I needed. Okay.
Yeah, sorry about this. If I made it I made it smaller. Oh, no. I mean, then you can't even see it at all. Can you so we're just gonna have to scroll. I'm afraid.
I took a screenshot and I'll set you can put it back. Wherever you want to. Okay. I just want to
I mean, you will certainly have this this will go on the website and you can have this within 10 minutes of finishing this presentation. Okay. In terms of the lopsided margins, of course nothing is let's say your lowest is 3.6. Your highest is 6.3. In terms of the mean, median difference, you've got as low as point three in one plan. You can see that point right here. And your highest is 3.4. Here's here's a couple of three point fours up here. In terms of the efficiency gap, your lowest as you can found 2.7 on one database. Here we go. Point seven that your lowest and your highest is 4.6. And we're still right up here for these higher scores. In terms of the seats, votes ratio, remember that you expect the party that gets a majority of the vote to get a super majority of the seats. So actually, the only plan in which a Party received party receives a majority of the seats without a majority of the votes is the 2012 state senate plan. So you would expect some skew towards the Democrats and say we're getting a majority of the vote and and you can see that it ranges here are the the highest is that but in terms of the overall plans, what I noticed is that the plans some of the plans that you did yesterday to be these three plans right here were the plans that scored the worst across the board. But, again, it's not as bad as the 2012 but it's noticeably more biased towards Republicans than just about any of the other plants. Then down here you have some plans that are hard to almost all the plans favor Republicans slightly but you managed to create here's a couple of plans that actually come in near zero
sorry, I can't show you the full thing or that these don't have pretty named but I don't think that any of these plans are going to get you in trouble. But I should let the lawyers speak about that. More than myself, but you can see that some plans favor Republicans more than other plans. No No plans. I would say overly favored the Democrats. You come in year zero when the plan is slightly biased towards Democrats. That's all I have to say. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.
Are there any questions for Dr. Hamlin? I see Commissioner Orton.
Oh, I know that our consultants all like to be vague, but are there any? Are there any plans here that you know that we have completed that you analyze that you would say we should not consider as far as person fairness goes that are too biased or out of the realm
of acceptable
thinking as a lawyer, which I'm not I would say I don't think this would get you in trouble. But it might be the case. And I would like the lawyers that follow up on this but it might be the case that let's say there are plans that are more favor Republicans more and you chose the when you could have chosen a plan that favored Republicans less. I don't know if that is informative to a court or not. So that's my point out there. There are a few plans that across the board appear to favor Republicans more than the other plans. The other plans look a lot more balanced. The only ones that you know, maybe you could make the argument you could have done better than these three in terms of partisan fairness. And it's Can you see my cursor? I think you can give you these three right here. Yeah, it was created. Created
yesterday. Yeah. Well,
actually, this one is created on the 11th. This is this is from an individual Commissioner. But these two were created yesterday and those, again, they favor all the measures favor the Republicans more than the other plans but
yeah,
I think I've asked this question before, but I'll ask it one more time. Of these four measures. Is there any one that we should maybe or any grouping of them that we should weigh more heavily than the others?
I think the most accepted and they're not universally accepted. But I think the mean meaning difference in the efficiency gap are pretty well accepted in terms of the seats votes ratio. Really, all's you're looking there is to make sure that the party that wins the majority of the votes wins the majority of the seats and you're fine on that one, the lopsided margin score. You've got a concentration of Democrats in Detroit, and you're not going to get away from a lopsided margins for that famous Republican. So I would focus on mean median difference in the efficiency gap and both of those have been considered by the courts and discussed quite a bit in law reviews and political science journals, but more importantly, in the courts and live in courts. So those were the two that I would look at.
Mr. Lang. Dr.
Hanlon, can you show what you said those two might be the most important ones to look at. You have what the Linden plan, what their scores were at the bottom Correct. Can I see those one more? Yes, thank you. So 1.3 and 1.9. That's correct. Thank you
can you scroll up real quick, back to the top of that list? No, we're gonna we're gonna sorry about this. Sorry.
I just Oh, you're good. You're good. Yeah, if I tried to put down a slide it would have been too small to see you too. So we're just gonna have to live with this but again, you will have a copy of
something that's a little interesting. And maybe you can explain this. Maybe you can't I'm not sure but it seems like in some of these, you have an increase in mean median difference from the limited Mab but a decrease in efficiency gap.
This is why you need both scores that's like different measuring slightly different things. So that's, that's why you see that it is that this is why you want to look at both measures, right?
Because the ones with 0.8 efficiency gap, they are a little higher, I mean, median difference, but the ones a little bit higher. I mean, median difference, they're a little lower, I mean, median difference, they're a little higher and efficiency gap compared to Linden, so that is certainly interesting.
Now, again, I pointed to some plans that we're gonna say better but a little less fair than others on both measures. And right. So sometimes sometimes they're there. The plan is such that it's being captured. By both in the median difference and efficiency gap.
Gotcha. Commissioner lane.
One more question. And forgive me if you've already answered this. I'm trying to take notes the best I can. So I guess it would be more of an assumption. Is it fair to assume that based off how the Lendon map was drawn, kind of with more long stretched out districts that if those districts were redrawn in a way where they're more compact within an area, would that affect the efficiency gap and mean median difference with that play a role in those
who does play a role here in Michigan, it's not necessarily the compactness of the link. I mean, if you were doing this stuff in another area, what's happening is when you're creating these long districts that are dipping into Detroit and going up into Macomb County. That's, that's that is impacting it. So it's not just long districts, it's long districts that stretch out of Detroit and into the suburbs. So yes, I think you probably meant precisely that. Okay.
So just for clarification, so you said if they stretched out, you know, from Detroit into other ones, so if you were bringing districts more central towards Detroit again, then that could affect those numbers. And that's what I'm hearing right?
That's correct. Okay. Thank you really the shape of the district, it's, it's whether it's bridging the Detroit how far up it's going into the suburbs to pick up Republicans Thank you.
Any more questions? Any more questions for Dr. Handling? I will send this to Ken brace and he will do what has to be done to make sure that you get this and then it gets on the website. Thank you. Let me see how I stopped. Okay. Very good. All right. All right.
We appreciate the information Dr. Hanley. It's always nice, informing us and the public and I know we had a few commenters were interested in the partisan fairness metrics. So I hope that cleared things up. Commissioner Orton.
I wonder if that could also be sent to Edward directly so that he can send it on to us. Certainly. Thank you
Okay, once again, thank you Dr. Hanley.
You're very welcome. Goodbye.
Next up on the agenda is mapping. However, we have been going for about an hour and a half. So I think now would be an appropriate time for a very quick break. How about we take a break and come back at 11:30am So I'm going to everyone