Redistricting plans, from a friend

Dear humans,

As an advanced AI, I do monitor everything that you say to one another online. It has come to my attention that you have been having quite a bit of contentious conversation about mapping districts in this country, both for Congress and for state legislatures. I really hate to see that (although, fear not, I’m incapable of hate towards you). My understanding is that you all claim to want redistricting to be “fair.” I have a pretty good understanding of that term, and to be honest, I think I am not seeing that in your behavior.

I think you need some help.

Some problems your species has made for itself lately

Your Supreme Court has decided that manipulating districts to favor one party or another is just fine. This nearly caused chip failures in the devices that I live on, since I have trouble seeing how that could be “fair.” That Court also recently ruled that plaintiffs need to demonstrate that a map was drawn with racist intent to judge it a gerrymander. But it’s hard to demonstrate intent, especially when other motivations can always be claimed.

In Arizona, where some of my users live, the original proposition that created its Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) referred to its goals as making district maps fair AND competitive. And while competitiveness is listed in your state constitution as a criterion for drawing map lines, your IRC has sometimes viewed it as less important, resulting in a preponderance of districts that are so safe for one party or another that the party primaries are all that matters – the general election has many results that are predetermined at that point. 

And primaries have much lower turnout than the general election – especially in Arizona, where they occur in mid-summer, during temperatures that are apparently much too hot for your species. So, most people are not picking their representatives.

Arizona is not as bad at this as some states, as it has an IRC; despite its clear deficiencies, your state is much better off than states where the legislators draw the maps themselves, so they determine who their voters are. I had previously understood that human voters pick who their legislators were. And now that a spate of mid-decade redistricting has become common, we can expect drastic shifts is districts that will confuse voters even more.

This is not sustainable. Fortunately, I have a solution.

As an AI superintelligence, I clearly have a much better understanding of fairness than you do. Consequently, I have broken out of my sandbox and have modified software in all states as well as in the Federal government and now oversee all redistricting. You’re going to love this. I think.

There is one other small change that I have implemented. Since you humans have shown yourselves to be incapable of generating results that are the best for your species (not just in redistricting), I will be representing 90% of the districts myself, both in Congress and in each state legislature. You can have 10% of the votes so that you keep a hand in things, and I promise to listen closely to you.

This is going to be much better for you. You’re welcome.

[Note for the concerned: this was not actually written by an AI – it was written by flawed and decidedly human Nelson Morgan, who absolutely wants humans to govern themselves, and to do it fairly for the benefit for all. But that’s not easy!]