The weekend got off to an annoying start, with Republicans lighting up state-funded SuperTalk radio in protest of the House redistricting plan's passage. The trend picked up steam on Twitter and the blogosphere this afternoon. As it did, it was an uncharacteristically unorganized mess, with repeated shouts of "It's not FAIR!" battering the eyes of readers. The Mississippi Republican Party and Mississippians for Fair Redistricting (I know, I know...same thing) then attempted to bring some order to the scene with press releases. Aside from the repeated use of the word "unfair", the releases focused on the "compactness" of the districts, and touted the Reock test as proof that the newly-passed map was less compact than the 2001 map.
So what is this Reock test? It's called the "circumscribing circle" test, and essentially what you do is draw the smallest circle around a district that you can, and compute the ratio of the area of the district to the area of the circle you drew. Of course, it's junk science, and I think the MSGOP knows it. They're just trying to add some steak to their whine.
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