The Pennsylvania Senate map drawn by the Times Observer reporting staff using the DistrictBuilder App has Warren County grouped with all of Forest, Crawford, and Venango counties, southeastern Erie County, and the top half of Mercer County. Sen. Scott Hutchinson, who currently represents most of Warren County, would live within the proposed district. The current 21st Senate District includes all of Venango, Clarion, and Forest counties, most of Warren County, and part of Butler County.

As of November 2020, there were 4.2 million registered Democrats and 3.5 million registered Republicans in Pennsylvania, according to the Department of State.

Those voters, and another 1.3 million registered in other parties, elected 28 Republicans, 21 Democrats, and one Independent to the State Senate, and 113 Republicans and 90 Democrats to the State House of Representatives.

Those ratios are almost exactly opposite of the registration numbers that show a 55 to 45 edge for Democrats.

One explanation for why the party with more voters has fewer elected representatives is related to maps. There is a term for establishing district boundaries in a way that benefits a particular party — gerrymandering.

There are bills in both chambers of the state legislature regarding the processes for drawing election maps.

House Bill 22 and Senate Bill 222 — of which Sen. Scott Hutchinson is listed as a sponsor – both labeled the Legislative and Congressional Redistricting Act, were introduced on Feb. 26.

The bills would provide greater transparency into the redistricting processes and establish “clear, measurable map-drawing criteria designed to prevent extreme partisan gerrymandering and promote accountability to voters.”

The proposed rules would follow the state Constitution’s requirements for compactness, contiguity, and avoiding division of political subdivisions.

There would be additional limits imposed and protections against discrimination would be instituted.

Currently, legislative maps are drawn by a commission. The members are appointed by the leaders of the legislature itself — one by the senate majority leader, one by the minority leader, one by the house majority leader, one by the minority leader, and one by those four appointees. If they cannot agree on a fifth member, the state supreme court appoints the fifth member.

Pennsylvania’s election maps have recently been called into question. In 2018, the State Supreme Court overturned — along party lines — the state’s Congressional map. When that map was first used in 2012, there were 13 Republicans and five Democrats elected. Out of about 5.5 million votes case for Congress, there were close to 100,000 more votes for Democrats.

In the election after the supreme court overturned the old map and a new one was used, there were nine Democrats and nine Republicans elected.

Whether the old maps were gerrymandered or not, new maps will be drawn, as required, to adjust for new 2020 census information.

Citizens who enjoy such things – including the Times Observer staff — may visit Fair District PA and use the DistrictBuilder app to create their own maps.

Under the previous census, the 50 State Senate districts have — or should have — about 254,000 people each. Each of the 203 House districts should have about 62,500 people in it.

When Josh Cotton and I used the app to make statewide maps, we focused on making districts contiguous – connected to the rest of the district — and including about the right number of people.

After that, we went for making them look like they made sense. The classic Goofy Kicking Donald 2012 Congressional district didn’t look like it made sense. Our districts have bumps and odd shapes sometimes, but those generally line up with odd geographic features or trying to get the numbers right. We also tried to follow county lines when it was possible.

There are tiny districts in heavily populated areas – particularly in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and large districts in rural areas in the north, central, and southern parts of the state.