Instead of arguing about the borders, you have arguments about which clustering algorithm to use, and what the weights to the inputs should be.
A simplistic algorithm like shortest splitline will give impractical results in many cases. For sure you're going to put Eagleton and Pawnee in the same district.
Unless you have a mathematical definition of districts that lead to good government, a purely mathematical solution won't be possible.
> Instead of arguing about the borders, you have arguments about which clustering algorithm to use, and what the weights to the inputs should be.
Yes, that's true. But with any luck the weights will have less knobs to turn, ie less information, than drawing lines.
> Unless you have a mathematical definition of districts that lead to good government, a purely mathematical solution won't be possible.
We just need to avoid the worst government.
Or perhaps the Americans can just look around the world to see how other countries are drawing their voting districts, and compare what works and what doesn't. (Shouldn't federalisms make that kind of experimenting work inside the US alone, too?)
In any case, there's a more interesting simple technocratic fix to try: count ballot papers that tick more than one candidate as a vote for each of the ticked candidates.
This way you can vote for the lesser evil and who you actually want.
