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arXiv · 1712.05390

Partisan gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

Boris Alexeev·Dustin G. Mixon
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Abstract

Bizarrely shaped voting districts are frequently lambasted as likely instances of gerrymandering. In order to systematically identify such instances, researchers have devised several tests for so-called geographic compactness (i.e., shape niceness). We demonstrate that under certain conditions, a party can gerrymander a competitive state into geographically compact districts to win an average of over 70% of the districts. Our results suggest that geometric features alone may fail to adequately combat partisan gerrymandering.

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Boris Alexeev, Dustin G. Mixon. 2017-12-14. Partisan gerrymandering with geographically compact districts. https://doi.org/10.1017/jpr.2018.70

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