Our first topic is voting. We’ve been fighting about voting since America’s founding. Most recently, the big fights are about fraud, voter suppression, and gerrymandering of district maps. State legislatures, the US Congress, and courts at many levels are embroiled in the battle.
I enjoyed your first newsletter, Lee, and fully endorse your desire to promote a win-win democracy. I am concerned that those at the ends of the political spectrum are not willing to consider giving up their all-or-nothing stances. There was a time when compromise across the aisle was the preferable outcome. Regrettably, I fear those days are past. Just as Xtreme sports are raging in popularity, Xtreme politics seem to win the day. Here's hoping your optimism prevails, and that there are enough policy-makers who are tired of gridlock and bitterness that ideas such as yours will take hold.
With my “liberal hat” on, I see hope in what Rather writes: “But after watching Republicans use all the means at their disposal to lock in power, the Democrats seem to have learned to abandon unilateral disarmament.” But with my win-win hat on, I see two naughty children battling it out.
I don't have much to offer in terms of observations on gerrymandering. It is indeed a difficult problem.
Here are two observations that might be useful to inform your thinking:
- we already have a national id for citizens. It's called a us passport (or passport card). There is no need to invent a new national id. You can just use what we already have. About 40% of American citizens already have passports.
- Most democratic countries require id to vote (Australia and the UK are well known exceptions) and they seem to be doing fine. The focus and energy on the voter id vs suppression issue in the US seems quite unique. You've noted that Democrats have not provided data supporting voter suppression is significant and the only data you provided on ids is a survey from 18 years ago (which, by the way, provided almost no explanation to how the data was collected, sample size, etc etc.). If it ain't broken, why do we need to fix it?
I'm a center leaning person and I think you are missing large part of the voter-id perspective on the right side of the map - its critical if you want to get a win-win. It is not just about fraud.
- States and local authorities manage voting. That's the way things should be. Most things, including voting should be run by local authorities. Voting in new York city should work differently than they would in rural Ohio. The federal government should not be involved in voting. We already have a perfectly capable democratic system in each state and if the people of New Hampshire want to allow voting without voter if, all the power to them. The people in Texas should have no say in the matter.
- People on the right want a smaller government, not a bigger government. Solutions that involve creating new bureaucracies and spending are not attractive, because they often come with their own share of problems and challenges, making the situation worse.
I agree with you that it is not just about fraud prevention. If it were, we’d also be discussing preventing the kinds of fraud that actually do occur (not voter impersonation fraud).
I also agree that voting should be run by local authorities. Indeed, that served us very well in the 2021 elections where many local authorities stood up to intense pressure to do the wrong thing. If our elections had been run by a (mythical) federal voting authority, we might have succumbed to all the pressure.
That said, even voting run by local authorities needs to follow some rules that guarantee certain civil rights. So, for example, if a state or county voting authority instituted a rule that only Christians may vote, we’d expect a federal intervention. Likewise, if a state or county voting authority moved to impose a race requirement. Our country has a long history of state and local authorities imposing rules like this.
So, I disagree that the federal government and courts have no role in voting. But I certainly agree, that local officials are much better able to work out the implementation issues around voting than the federal government, within a set of rules that guarantee everyone’s rights.
Regarding government size, what I intend to propose in the next newsletter would not grow the government, but do something it already does better.
No one argued that the courts have no role in voting. The constitution is quite clear about scenarios like christians only, or a race is to be excluded from voting. The argument was that the federal government should not get involved. Federal court will absolutely get involved in these scenarios.I am all for finding win-win, down to earth solutions. I think the current system solves the two scenarios you talked about quite well, and to be honest, they sound quite disconnected from reality in this day and age. Any win-win solution must solve real problems, not imagined.
Sorry, when I said “federal government,” I meant it in the sense of the 3-branch federal system. I think you mean it in terms of the federal executive branch. Assuming that’s what you mean, I agree that the federal court solves the two examples I gave. I was trying to make the argument that there is a federal role in overseeing some of the ground rules for elections even at the state and local level.
The “real problem” is partisan gerrymandering, where the federal courts have chosen to not get involved. It would take action from Congress to solve partisan gerrymandering.
The supreme court is the final arbiter of law and of course has a role overseeing election law even at the state and local level. I don't think anyone to the left or the right has an issue with that.
The constitution is quite clear on the limiting the power of the federal legislative branch, and the executive branch from dealing with things that are in the purview of the states.
We're among friends here so we can be honest with each other. The only reason to try and involve congress in voting is that we don't trust the states to do the right thing, so we are seeking a "change of venue" so to speak where we can get a more favorable outcome. This is wrong for two reasons. The first is that congress being a more favorable venue is a temporary situation that may very well change in the future, and that may come back and bite us (i.e. imagine a republican congress making laws not allowing states to limit gun purchases for example). The second is that the local government is fundamentally more appropriate, efficient and relevant to legislate and execute on these things (albeit far from perfect). The founders were very smart to delegate powers to the states.
The tension in powers between federal and the states is a good thing. There is a long history in the country of action at the federal level being necessary to override the states to grant rights to the citizenry. The most effective way for this to happen is with Constitutional amendments. Beyond the original Bill of Rights, the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th amendments are, in my opinion, of that nature.
Sometimes Congress passes legislation to ensure that rights granted by the Constitution are available in practice. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 stands out in that category.
Personally, I feel fortunate that this is the case. I live in a state whose Constitution calls the state a “Christian state” (Article XI, Sec 4), disqualifies “any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God” from holding office (Article VI, Sec 8), and says (Article XIV, Sec 6) that “Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shell be valid or recognized in this State.” All of these are unenforceable because of action at the federal level.
Another example that I find particularly ironic, is that the deed to the land on which my synagogue sits has a covenant that prohibits sale of the land to Jews and Blacks. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 made such covenants illegal.
In all your examples, the supreme court would have struck down any state laws or state executive branch action that would attempt to actually enforce these rules. The court - not congress.
States regularly make laws and take executive action that completely ignores federal law - marijuana legalization is a great example. Just as a nit, your synagogue is actually not protected by the fair housing act of 1968, it's a commercial structure that is not covered by the act.
I think you might be generalizing the need for federal action and not distinguishing sufficiently between the federal judicial branch and the legislative branch. The two are radically different.
One last observation - it's very easy to find weird laws on the books, of all different sorts (https://www.thedailymeal.com/travel/weirdest-laws-your-state-gallery). A win win approach means that we need to solve actual problems, not junk laws that are still on the books.
- You argue the right wants smaller government. We have all heard that refrain. Yet, establishing and enforcing voter ID will surely, at minimum, expand existing government. Could it be we want what we want only when it suits us?
- I'm with Alice and you that there is no need to create a new ID system, but can we please update the one we got. Very cumbersome and time consuming to get a passport. Not sure about passport cards, I assume they are they same thing, only smaller. And plastic.
- Decentralized elections good. Federal minimum standards better.
There is no need for federal voter id. Lee suggested it, arguing that republicans want something to help precent fraud. I'm just pointing out that if one is looking for.a win-win, they should first understand what both sides actually want and care about. A federal voting id is inconsistent with what people on the right care about. State ids work just fine.
I agree decentralized voting certainly has it’s merits! We hosted voting at our home for several years. They were wonderful local community events with neighbors greeting and meeting with neighbors!
As to voter ID passports can be difficult to obtain and can be expensive.
Oh agree with your comment on passports. I' just pointing out that a federal id already exists... Not clear why inventing another one would make things any better
Maybe as part of the census, based on the results combined with the power of computing, the districts can be drawn up with the starting point being the center of the population base and lines drawn in “pie” slices numbering proportionately to the population? Then the only incentive is for states to make sure the census counts all eligible voters and get them legitimately IDed to get the maxed number of “slices” (representatives). So the census department defines the districts with bipartisan oversight.
Lee, regarding the idea of a national voter id, I suspect your suggestion will be get the same reaction from Red and Blue, for pretty much the same reason: "What?!!?! National Identity Papers? Never!!!!!" It's interesting to look at which countries have national id's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_identity_card_policies_by_country).
Regarding Gerrymandering: What is the mechanism for specifying and enforcing laws to prevent Gerrymandering? As Bob Shapiro suggests, both Red and Blue will be against it following the current faction that's in power. Also, if the underlying criterion is that representative count should be proportional to vote count, I can see another solution: Make all positions in the House of Representatives state-wide ("at large"), with representatives apportioned according to vote count (and, while we're at it, remove the Electoral College).
I plan to discuss what you’re calling “national identity papers” in my next newsletter. There will certainly be opposition (e.g., the ACLU has long opposed national id), but I hope I can convince you that we already have all of the privacy issues with what we do now and that we can do much better. I won’t make the argument here but will eager to see whether I can make the sale in the next newsletter.
I’m not aware of any enforcement against gerrymandering other than the Courts. SCOTUS has washed their hands of partisan gerrymandering, saying that it is not up to federal courts because Congress has passed no laws. Racial gerrymanders have been successfully overturned in both federal and state courts based on equal protection arguments. Last week, the NC Supreme court overturned partisan gerrymandered maps and ordered specific remedies with deadlines, all under threat that if the legislature doesn’t draw acceptable maps by the deadline, the court will do it. We’ll see how this unfolds.
Regarding statewide districts, while they would solve gerrymandering of US Congressional districts, they would introduce another big problem: people in rural areas would probably lose all their representation. For example, NC’s population is about 72% urban. If we moved to statewide districts it is reasonable to assume that the urban areas would dominate the choice of representatives. Other states are even more urban than NC. Similar arguments would imply that minorities would also lose a lot of their representation.
At large reps is an interesting idea! And, yes please, let’s work to eliminate the electoral college. So many non-voters cite the electoral college as the reason why they don’t vote… feeling their vote doesn’t count.
Eliminating the electoral college is going to fundamentally change America from a federal republic to a representative democracy. Seems to me such a giant change shouldn't be undertaken just so voters feel better.
A predecessor issue to both voter ID and gerrymandering is the census. Census data is used as the basis for determining the number of representatives for each state and redistricting maps, and it only takes place once every decade.
The 2020 census was a complete debacle, between the administration‘s influences and Covid 19, the results are deeply flawed.
For example in California, where I resided at the time, there was a tremendous disinformation campaign that linked census responses to ICE reporting, resulting in a huge undercounting of the undocumented and superstitious population. (This population would most likely have the same fear based response to voter ID initiatives.)
Bad census data poses many interesting possibilities. While on one hand providing data to support a preferred district map, or number of representatives, the absence of a voter ID requirement could result in surprising election results. That’s why voter ID and gerrymandering are only a guarantee of the desired political outcome if they are both implemented.
Great pairing of issues, much food for thought!
Personally, I think a “district” should be a box that expands symmetrically until the population requirement is met, the representative must be someone from within the box who knows firsthand the issues inside the box, and works to “represent” the best interests of that population. And, a proper census could potentially identify eligible voters and provide the necessary voter ID.
Okay, I am officially “out” as an idealist. Thanks, Lee.
There are some good reasons for districts to respect various kinds of “natural” boundaries with the intent of not splitting cohesive communities. For example, a river passing through a city might cause there to be entirely different communities on the two sides of the river. Another example, might be to give an urban area a different representative than a rural area to respect the different natures of the communities. Of course, subjective guidelines like this can be abused.
One problem with a theoretically good win-win solution is that whoever thinks the current rules benefit them, is unlikely to go along with it. Perhaps any changes could be planned to take effect after the next census (assuming our democracy lasts that long). That way nobody knows who will most benefit or lose from any change in process.
Interesting idea. It reminds me of what happened when we lived in White Plains, NY: the school board implemented a school choice program for the elementary schools, which allowed parents to request to send their child to any elementary school in the city. This meant that some children who lived near a school might not be able to attend their “neighborhood school.” The implementation was phased in so that children currently in elementary school, their siblings, and children a number of years younger than school age were not affected. I imagine it was done that way to reduce pushback from the voters who would pay most attention to such matters.
Very thoughtful ideas. I hope you get many thoughtful comments. In New York, we were surprised to learn of the legislature’s gerrymandering in the democrats’ favor… but then again, perhaps not so surprised.
Are district maps drawn based on overall population or just voting age population? For me "fair" would be that the district lines would only consider whether an individual was voting age or not and would be drawn to minimize the district boundary.
District maps for US Congressional seats are drawn based on the overall population, which includes both citizens and non-citizens (including unauthorized immigrants) of all ages. I don’t know how the various states handle this for their own legislative districts. (The US Census Bureau does provide population counts by legislative district for the entire country.)
I enjoyed your first newsletter, Lee, and fully endorse your desire to promote a win-win democracy. I am concerned that those at the ends of the political spectrum are not willing to consider giving up their all-or-nothing stances. There was a time when compromise across the aisle was the preferable outcome. Regrettably, I fear those days are past. Just as Xtreme sports are raging in popularity, Xtreme politics seem to win the day. Here's hoping your optimism prevails, and that there are enough policy-makers who are tired of gridlock and bitterness that ideas such as yours will take hold.
Sometimes you just have to start with the ones who are ready. Create something where there was nothing, and now it's "the thing", leading the way.
There’s a hopeful note on gerrymandering in Dan Rather’s good news Saturday post on Steady…
https://steady.substack.com/p/islands-of-hope?r=75yey&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
With my “liberal hat” on, I see hope in what Rather writes: “But after watching Republicans use all the means at their disposal to lock in power, the Democrats seem to have learned to abandon unilateral disarmament.” But with my win-win hat on, I see two naughty children battling it out.
I don't have much to offer in terms of observations on gerrymandering. It is indeed a difficult problem.
Here are two observations that might be useful to inform your thinking:
- we already have a national id for citizens. It's called a us passport (or passport card). There is no need to invent a new national id. You can just use what we already have. About 40% of American citizens already have passports.
- Most democratic countries require id to vote (Australia and the UK are well known exceptions) and they seem to be doing fine. The focus and energy on the voter id vs suppression issue in the US seems quite unique. You've noted that Democrats have not provided data supporting voter suppression is significant and the only data you provided on ids is a survey from 18 years ago (which, by the way, provided almost no explanation to how the data was collected, sample size, etc etc.). If it ain't broken, why do we need to fix it?
I'm a center leaning person and I think you are missing large part of the voter-id perspective on the right side of the map - its critical if you want to get a win-win. It is not just about fraud.
- States and local authorities manage voting. That's the way things should be. Most things, including voting should be run by local authorities. Voting in new York city should work differently than they would in rural Ohio. The federal government should not be involved in voting. We already have a perfectly capable democratic system in each state and if the people of New Hampshire want to allow voting without voter if, all the power to them. The people in Texas should have no say in the matter.
- People on the right want a smaller government, not a bigger government. Solutions that involve creating new bureaucracies and spending are not attractive, because they often come with their own share of problems and challenges, making the situation worse.
I agree with you that it is not just about fraud prevention. If it were, we’d also be discussing preventing the kinds of fraud that actually do occur (not voter impersonation fraud).
I also agree that voting should be run by local authorities. Indeed, that served us very well in the 2021 elections where many local authorities stood up to intense pressure to do the wrong thing. If our elections had been run by a (mythical) federal voting authority, we might have succumbed to all the pressure.
That said, even voting run by local authorities needs to follow some rules that guarantee certain civil rights. So, for example, if a state or county voting authority instituted a rule that only Christians may vote, we’d expect a federal intervention. Likewise, if a state or county voting authority moved to impose a race requirement. Our country has a long history of state and local authorities imposing rules like this.
So, I disagree that the federal government and courts have no role in voting. But I certainly agree, that local officials are much better able to work out the implementation issues around voting than the federal government, within a set of rules that guarantee everyone’s rights.
Regarding government size, what I intend to propose in the next newsletter would not grow the government, but do something it already does better.
No one argued that the courts have no role in voting. The constitution is quite clear about scenarios like christians only, or a race is to be excluded from voting. The argument was that the federal government should not get involved. Federal court will absolutely get involved in these scenarios.I am all for finding win-win, down to earth solutions. I think the current system solves the two scenarios you talked about quite well, and to be honest, they sound quite disconnected from reality in this day and age. Any win-win solution must solve real problems, not imagined.
Sorry, when I said “federal government,” I meant it in the sense of the 3-branch federal system. I think you mean it in terms of the federal executive branch. Assuming that’s what you mean, I agree that the federal court solves the two examples I gave. I was trying to make the argument that there is a federal role in overseeing some of the ground rules for elections even at the state and local level.
The “real problem” is partisan gerrymandering, where the federal courts have chosen to not get involved. It would take action from Congress to solve partisan gerrymandering.
The supreme court is the final arbiter of law and of course has a role overseeing election law even at the state and local level. I don't think anyone to the left or the right has an issue with that.
The constitution is quite clear on the limiting the power of the federal legislative branch, and the executive branch from dealing with things that are in the purview of the states.
We're among friends here so we can be honest with each other. The only reason to try and involve congress in voting is that we don't trust the states to do the right thing, so we are seeking a "change of venue" so to speak where we can get a more favorable outcome. This is wrong for two reasons. The first is that congress being a more favorable venue is a temporary situation that may very well change in the future, and that may come back and bite us (i.e. imagine a republican congress making laws not allowing states to limit gun purchases for example). The second is that the local government is fundamentally more appropriate, efficient and relevant to legislate and execute on these things (albeit far from perfect). The founders were very smart to delegate powers to the states.
The tension in powers between federal and the states is a good thing. There is a long history in the country of action at the federal level being necessary to override the states to grant rights to the citizenry. The most effective way for this to happen is with Constitutional amendments. Beyond the original Bill of Rights, the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th amendments are, in my opinion, of that nature.
Sometimes Congress passes legislation to ensure that rights granted by the Constitution are available in practice. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 stands out in that category.
Personally, I feel fortunate that this is the case. I live in a state whose Constitution calls the state a “Christian state” (Article XI, Sec 4), disqualifies “any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God” from holding office (Article VI, Sec 8), and says (Article XIV, Sec 6) that “Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shell be valid or recognized in this State.” All of these are unenforceable because of action at the federal level.
Another example that I find particularly ironic, is that the deed to the land on which my synagogue sits has a covenant that prohibits sale of the land to Jews and Blacks. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 made such covenants illegal.
In all your examples, the supreme court would have struck down any state laws or state executive branch action that would attempt to actually enforce these rules. The court - not congress.
States regularly make laws and take executive action that completely ignores federal law - marijuana legalization is a great example. Just as a nit, your synagogue is actually not protected by the fair housing act of 1968, it's a commercial structure that is not covered by the act.
I think you might be generalizing the need for federal action and not distinguishing sufficiently between the federal judicial branch and the legislative branch. The two are radically different.
One last observation - it's very easy to find weird laws on the books, of all different sorts (https://www.thedailymeal.com/travel/weirdest-laws-your-state-gallery). A win win approach means that we need to solve actual problems, not junk laws that are still on the books.
- You argue the right wants smaller government. We have all heard that refrain. Yet, establishing and enforcing voter ID will surely, at minimum, expand existing government. Could it be we want what we want only when it suits us?
- I'm with Alice and you that there is no need to create a new ID system, but can we please update the one we got. Very cumbersome and time consuming to get a passport. Not sure about passport cards, I assume they are they same thing, only smaller. And plastic.
- Decentralized elections good. Federal minimum standards better.
There is no need for federal voter id. Lee suggested it, arguing that republicans want something to help precent fraud. I'm just pointing out that if one is looking for.a win-win, they should first understand what both sides actually want and care about. A federal voting id is inconsistent with what people on the right care about. State ids work just fine.
I agree decentralized voting certainly has it’s merits! We hosted voting at our home for several years. They were wonderful local community events with neighbors greeting and meeting with neighbors!
As to voter ID passports can be difficult to obtain and can be expensive.
Oh agree with your comment on passports. I' just pointing out that a federal id already exists... Not clear why inventing another one would make things any better
Maybe as part of the census, based on the results combined with the power of computing, the districts can be drawn up with the starting point being the center of the population base and lines drawn in “pie” slices numbering proportionately to the population? Then the only incentive is for states to make sure the census counts all eligible voters and get them legitimately IDed to get the maxed number of “slices” (representatives). So the census department defines the districts with bipartisan oversight.
Lee, regarding the idea of a national voter id, I suspect your suggestion will be get the same reaction from Red and Blue, for pretty much the same reason: "What?!!?! National Identity Papers? Never!!!!!" It's interesting to look at which countries have national id's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_identity_card_policies_by_country).
Regarding Gerrymandering: What is the mechanism for specifying and enforcing laws to prevent Gerrymandering? As Bob Shapiro suggests, both Red and Blue will be against it following the current faction that's in power. Also, if the underlying criterion is that representative count should be proportional to vote count, I can see another solution: Make all positions in the House of Representatives state-wide ("at large"), with representatives apportioned according to vote count (and, while we're at it, remove the Electoral College).
I plan to discuss what you’re calling “national identity papers” in my next newsletter. There will certainly be opposition (e.g., the ACLU has long opposed national id), but I hope I can convince you that we already have all of the privacy issues with what we do now and that we can do much better. I won’t make the argument here but will eager to see whether I can make the sale in the next newsletter.
I’m not aware of any enforcement against gerrymandering other than the Courts. SCOTUS has washed their hands of partisan gerrymandering, saying that it is not up to federal courts because Congress has passed no laws. Racial gerrymanders have been successfully overturned in both federal and state courts based on equal protection arguments. Last week, the NC Supreme court overturned partisan gerrymandered maps and ordered specific remedies with deadlines, all under threat that if the legislature doesn’t draw acceptable maps by the deadline, the court will do it. We’ll see how this unfolds.
Regarding statewide districts, while they would solve gerrymandering of US Congressional districts, they would introduce another big problem: people in rural areas would probably lose all their representation. For example, NC’s population is about 72% urban. If we moved to statewide districts it is reasonable to assume that the urban areas would dominate the choice of representatives. Other states are even more urban than NC. Similar arguments would imply that minorities would also lose a lot of their representation.
At large reps is an interesting idea! And, yes please, let’s work to eliminate the electoral college. So many non-voters cite the electoral college as the reason why they don’t vote… feeling their vote doesn’t count.
Eliminating the electoral college is going to fundamentally change America from a federal republic to a representative democracy. Seems to me such a giant change shouldn't be undertaken just so voters feel better.
A predecessor issue to both voter ID and gerrymandering is the census. Census data is used as the basis for determining the number of representatives for each state and redistricting maps, and it only takes place once every decade.
The 2020 census was a complete debacle, between the administration‘s influences and Covid 19, the results are deeply flawed.
For example in California, where I resided at the time, there was a tremendous disinformation campaign that linked census responses to ICE reporting, resulting in a huge undercounting of the undocumented and superstitious population. (This population would most likely have the same fear based response to voter ID initiatives.)
Bad census data poses many interesting possibilities. While on one hand providing data to support a preferred district map, or number of representatives, the absence of a voter ID requirement could result in surprising election results. That’s why voter ID and gerrymandering are only a guarantee of the desired political outcome if they are both implemented.
Great pairing of issues, much food for thought!
Personally, I think a “district” should be a box that expands symmetrically until the population requirement is met, the representative must be someone from within the box who knows firsthand the issues inside the box, and works to “represent” the best interests of that population. And, a proper census could potentially identify eligible voters and provide the necessary voter ID.
Okay, I am officially “out” as an idealist. Thanks, Lee.
Alice Butterick
There are some good reasons for districts to respect various kinds of “natural” boundaries with the intent of not splitting cohesive communities. For example, a river passing through a city might cause there to be entirely different communities on the two sides of the river. Another example, might be to give an urban area a different representative than a rural area to respect the different natures of the communities. Of course, subjective guidelines like this can be abused.
One problem with a theoretically good win-win solution is that whoever thinks the current rules benefit them, is unlikely to go along with it. Perhaps any changes could be planned to take effect after the next census (assuming our democracy lasts that long). That way nobody knows who will most benefit or lose from any change in process.
Interesting idea. It reminds me of what happened when we lived in White Plains, NY: the school board implemented a school choice program for the elementary schools, which allowed parents to request to send their child to any elementary school in the city. This meant that some children who lived near a school might not be able to attend their “neighborhood school.” The implementation was phased in so that children currently in elementary school, their siblings, and children a number of years younger than school age were not affected. I imagine it was done that way to reduce pushback from the voters who would pay most attention to such matters.
Very thoughtful ideas. I hope you get many thoughtful comments. In New York, we were surprised to learn of the legislature’s gerrymandering in the democrats’ favor… but then again, perhaps not so surprised.
Are district maps drawn based on overall population or just voting age population? For me "fair" would be that the district lines would only consider whether an individual was voting age or not and would be drawn to minimize the district boundary.
District maps for US Congressional seats are drawn based on the overall population, which includes both citizens and non-citizens (including unauthorized immigrants) of all ages. I don’t know how the various states handle this for their own legislative districts. (The US Census Bureau does provide population counts by legislative district for the entire country.)