ASA Connect

     S+S Episode 55, "Abstract art or modern congressional districts- statistical thinking to fix gerrymandering" is now available.  Gary King (@kinggary) is the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor and Director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. King focuses on innovations that span the range from statistical theory to practical application. His methods are used extensively in many fields of academia, government, consulting, and private industry. He is a founder, and inventor of the original technology for, Learning Catalytics, Crimson Hexagon, Perusall, and other firms. He is a founder, and inventor of the original technology for, Learning Catalytics, Crimson Hexagon, Perusall, and OpenScholar. He talks about quantifying the impact of gerrymandering along with other topics on this S+S episode.

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John Bailer
for the Stats+Stories team
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A simple way to make partisan gerrymandering impossible would be to divide each state that is wider than it is high (on a Mercator Projection) into vertical slices having nearly equal populations. States that are higher than wide would be divided horizontally. If adopted nationwide, it would make it impossible to rig the voting districts. However, a big downside is that it -- and almost any other solution -- would probably require a constitutional amendment.  We would also lose the concept of "local districts", but I doubt that they are still relevant.

On the other hand, we'll also have to consider the Law of Unintended Consequences.

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Emil M Friedman, PhD
emilfriedman@gmail.com
http://www.statisticalconsulting.org
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Can you provide a link to "S+S Episode 55"?

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Emil M Friedman, PhD
emilfriedman@gmail.com
http://www.statisticalconsulting.org
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