Political Geometry: Establishing Fair Mathematical Standards for Political Redistricting
Gerrymandering is a direct threat to our democracy, undermining founding principles like equal protection under the law and eroding public confidence in elections.
We are studying how to establish fair, mathematically well-posed, and computationally tractable standards for political redistricting. With the goal of combating design of unfair districting plans, our team is a member of the Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group (MGGG), a small nonpartisan Boston-based team of mathematicians and computer scientists working on applications of geometry and computer science to U.S. redistricting. Our ongoing research has led to algorithms and software designed to promote fair redistricting practices, including statistical techniques to analyze proposed districting plans and theory designed to reveal the possibilities and limitations of computational redistricting.
