Biased Election MapsFighting Gerrymandering in 2020

Nick Doiron - 2012 Code for America fellow@mapmeld on Twitter && GitHub -I was at MGGG but don’t speak for them or my employer

About me

2012 - Code for America

2013/14 - Boston GIS, DataMade, Civis

2015 - Myanmar election API & maps

About MGGG

- Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group (MGGG)

- Google this: Tufts gerrymandering

- Videos on YouTube !

Oct 12-15 U.WI-Madison - Register literally today

Pennsylvania | 50.3% R - 48.3% D | 13 - 5

The US doesn’t have proportional reps

But why is the difference SO BIG?

It’s deliberately drawnthat way

By our reps

“Gerrymandering” ??

1812edition

Where do gerrymanders come from?

Do we even need to redistrict?

1942 Colegrove v. Green - Felix Frankfurter

1962 Baker v. Carr - Frankfurter falls1964 Civil Rights Act1965 Voting Rights Act

Don’t need proof ofracist intent, onlyracist outcome

Supreme Court steps up

2010-2012 “RedMap”

2013 - Voting Rights Act weakened

Advances in “big data”and algorithms

2020 might be as big of a shift

Voting Rights Act - what went wrong?

0.1% figure willinevitably come up in 2020 and be made to seem like a valid point

Partisan Gerrymandering

Advances in “big data” on consumers,GIS/maps

make this very predictable

Partisan Gerrymandering

Supreme Court is still cautious

Reviewing this year (!!!)

Justice Kennedy’s 2004 Hackathon Pitch

"Technology is both a threat and a promise…

new technologies may produce new methods of analysis that make more

evident the precise nature of the burdens gerrymanders impose on the

representational rights of voters and parties. That would facilitate court efforts

to identify and remedy the burdens, with judicial intervention limited by the derived

standards.

If suitable standards... did emerge, hindsight would show that the Court

prematurely abandoned the field."

Fight fire with fire, right? Tech can help!

BDistricting.com - Brian Olson

I get what you wanted to do, but NO

Algorithmic redistricting in Mexico

Every district has a story

Illinois 4th District

Every district has a story

NY Times Population Density Map

Every district has a story

Majority-minority districts are the law

- 2 - 3 minority groups living close together

- created by Voting Rights Act

- defended and defined by Supreme Court

(Gingles)

- benefits clear, alternatives unclear

Even city-wide elections can disenfranchise

Racial and Partisan Gerry-mandering are Linked

Maybe we could use geometry

Moon Duchin organized MGGG

There are other diagrams, but this is one that I understood

Maybe we could use ecological inference

Maybe we could use supercomputers

Yan Liu and Wendy Cho compare existing district maps to algorithms with partisan and non-partisan goals

We definitely need informed votersgithub.com/gerrymandr -

Explaining District Genius

“The battle for our tomorrow starts today”

- TSCC

Reminder: register now!

Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group (MGGG)

Math, Educator, and GIS tracks

Oct 12-15 U. WI-MadisonAsk a friend if they need help getting there

Thanks!

Nick Doiron

@mapmeld on Twitter && GitHub

@gerrymandr direct line to MGGG people