Opinion ID: 6501056
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Additional comparisons

Text: {¶ 45} Dr. Imai compared the partisan vote shares of the March 2 plan’s districts with those of his 5,000 simulated plans and concluded that the three most competitive Democratic-leaning districts in the March 2 plan are much less Democratic-leaning than almost all of the Democratic-leaning districts in his simulated plans. One of those districts in the March 2 plan has a Republican vote share that is 1.9 standard deviations above the median Republican vote share of the comparable districts in the simulated plans and has a Republican vote share that is higher than the Republican vote share in 86.6 percent of the simulated plans’ counterpart districts. The other two districts have Republican vote shares that are 2.8 and 3.5 standard deviations above the median for comparable districts in the simulated plans and are higher than 99.75 percent of the simulated plans’ counterpart districts. {¶ 46} Dr. Imai also identified two districts that are slightly Republicanleaning toss-up districts under the simulated plans yet are safely Republican under the March 2 plan. These districts (District 10 and District 15) have Republican vote shares that are 3.4 and 5.5 standard deviations above the median of comparable simulated districts. And he analyzed the districts at the extremes of vote share for each party, concluding that the two most-Democratic districts (District 3 and District 11) are packed, having lower Republican vote shares than counterpart districts in the simulated plans. By contrast, the most-Republican districts are less 19 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO packed, containing lower Republican vote shares than expected based on the simulated plans. This analysis leads Dr. Imai to conclude that the March 2 plan favors Republicans “by turning Democratic-leaning districts into toss-up districts while making slightly Republican-leaning districts into safe Republican districts.” {¶ 47} Dr. Chen similarly compared the March 2 plan to his 1,000 simulated plans, leading him to conclude that the March 2 plan “is an extreme partisan outlier, both at a statewide level and with respect to the partisan characteristics of its individual districts.” As noted above, according to Dr. Chen, the most-Democratic district in the March 2 plan (District 11 in Cleveland) is more heavily Democratic than 98.8 percent of the most-Democratic districts in each of Dr. Chen’s 1,000 simulated plans. The second-most-Democratic district in the March 2 plan (District 3 in Columbus) is more heavily Democratic than 90.4 percent of the second-mostDemocratic districts in each of the simulated plans. In comparison, the mostRepublican district (District 2 in southern Ohio) is less heavily Republican than 90.1 percent of the most-Republican districts in Dr. Chen’s simulated plans. {¶ 48} According to Dr. Chen, these characteristics “are consistent with an effort to favor the Republican Party by packing Democratic voters into a small number of districts that very heavily favor the Democratic party.” Dr. Chen concludes that by allocating more Democratic voters to the most partisan districts, the March 2 plan allocates fewer Democratic voters to other districts, making them more Republican. Dr. Chen notes that four districts in the March 2 plan have higher Republican vote shares than 95 percent of their counterpart districts in the simulated plans, making them unusually safe Republican districts due to the packing of Democratic voters into Districts 2, 3, and 11. {¶ 49} Using the definition of “competitive” promoted by the proponents of the original congressional-district plan (i.e., having a partisan vote share between 46 and 54 percent), Dr. Chen further concludes that the March 2 plan is a statistical outlier. See Adams, __ Ohio St.3d __, 2022-Ohio-89, __ N.E.3d __, at ¶ 19. The 20 January Term, 2022 March 2 plan has nine “safe Republican” districts (one more than the original plan), which is more than the number of safe-Republican districts in 97 percent of Dr. Chen’s 1,000 simulated plans. The March 2 plan includes two safe-Democratic districts (the same as the original plan), which is fewer than the number of safeDemocratic districts in 95 percent of the simulated plans. {¶ 50} Finally, Dr. Chen notes that the March 2 plan is less compact than all 1,000 of his simulated plans under the Polsby-Popper and Reock metrics.6 {¶ 51} Dr. Imai’s and Dr. Chen’s comparison analyses show that the March 2 plan’s significant favoritism of the Republican Party did not result from the application of neutral map-drawing criteria.