Скачать или смотреть Gerrymandering... Where do we draw the line?

Authors: Taylor Boatwright & Dan Scofield (Advisor)
Area: Mathematics
Gerrymandering is unfair political redistricting used to gain a higher proportion of congressional seats than the voting proportion for that party. With very few federal guidelines present for redistricting, each state designs its own methods which can lead to outcomes that stretch the limits on the rules. Since the only rules in place are that each district only has to be continuous and have approximately 700,000 citizens, it is difficult for courts to issue a judgment for when it has occurred and how to argue against it in the future. There have been a variety of tests developed that is used to test whether gerrymandering has occurred, but the majority can only test this after a vote has occurred. We write a program to simulate a random dispersion of voters within a state and implement an algorithm to divide into equal districts. We then calculate the efficiency gap, developed by Stephanopoulos and McGhee, and use that as a means to test whether gerrymandering occurred in our algorithm. This will repeatedly take place so that we can statistically analyze the likelihood of a gerrymandering event taking place in a randomized scenario with an equal proportion of voters for each party. With this information, the courts or federal government could have more information on the occurrences of gerrymandering in a randomized setting that can serve as a reference to the passing of new, more stringent laws that will limit gerrymandering practices in the future.