Talia Schwartz, Senior
Partisan gerrymandering is a significant contemporary issue in Congress because it allows politicians to redraw state districts that favor their specific party. While this issue is bad for democracy, the Supreme Court has not intervened in decades because the courts say that partisan redistricting is a political question and therefore not one that federal courts can contribute to. Due to this, the courts have not established a way to measure or declare partisan gerrymandering in a fair manner.
Wendy Cho and Yan Liu decided to fix this issue using a measurement tool on a supercomputer; the software would be able to measure whether or not politicians used gerrymandering to gain an advantage in an upcoming election. This “gerrymandering ruler” considers certain factors that are important to the court when redistricting. These factors, many of which are required by law, include population equity, contiguity compactness, traditional districting, and principles. These factors help to ensure that like-minded individuals are kept in the same district and political subdivisions (cities, counties, etc.) are preserved.
The computer’s algorithm creates all of the possible maps of redistribution while only taking into consideration these factors and traditional redistricting principles. Courts can then determine if political gerrymandering occurred if the redistribution doesn’t look like any of the maps produced by the supercomputer’s algorithm. This computer program is a good solution for the issue of partisan gerrymandering because it allows the courts to find substantive evidence to support their claim that politicians used political bias when redrawing their districts. Additionally, this method would preserve democracy in this country by ensuring that elections are fair.