Gerrymandering and Compactness: Implementation Flexibility and Abuse
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Political districts may be drawn to favor one group or political party over another, or <jats:italic>gerrymandered</jats:italic>. A number of measurements have been suggested as ways to detect and prevent such behavior. These mea...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135571 |
| _version_ | 1826204896731332608 |
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| author | Barnes, Richard Solomon, Justin |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Barnes, Richard Solomon, Justin |
| author_sort | Barnes, Richard |
| collection | MIT |
| description | <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Political districts may be drawn to favor one group or political party over another, or <jats:italic>gerrymandered</jats:italic>. A number of measurements have been suggested as ways to detect and prevent such behavior. These measures give concrete axes along which districts and districting plans can be compared. However, measurement values are affected by both noise and the compounding effects of seemingly innocuous implementation decisions. Such issues will arise for any measure. As a case study demonstrating the effect, we show that commonly used measures of geometric compactness for district boundaries are affected by several factors irrelevant to fairness or compliance with civil rights law. We further show that an adversary could manipulate measurements to affect the assessment of a given plan. This instability complicates using these measurements as legislative or judicial standards to counteract unfair redistricting practices. This paper accompanies the release of packages in C++, Python, and R that correctly, efficiently, and reproducibly calculate a variety of compactness scores.</jats:p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:03:04Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/135571 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:03:04Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1355712023-03-15T20:10:40Z Gerrymandering and Compactness: Implementation Flexibility and Abuse Barnes, Richard Solomon, Justin Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Political districts may be drawn to favor one group or political party over another, or <jats:italic>gerrymandered</jats:italic>. A number of measurements have been suggested as ways to detect and prevent such behavior. These measures give concrete axes along which districts and districting plans can be compared. However, measurement values are affected by both noise and the compounding effects of seemingly innocuous implementation decisions. Such issues will arise for any measure. As a case study demonstrating the effect, we show that commonly used measures of geometric compactness for district boundaries are affected by several factors irrelevant to fairness or compliance with civil rights law. We further show that an adversary could manipulate measurements to affect the assessment of a given plan. This instability complicates using these measurements as legislative or judicial standards to counteract unfair redistricting practices. This paper accompanies the release of packages in C++, Python, and R that correctly, efficiently, and reproducibly calculate a variety of compactness scores.</jats:p> 2021-10-27T20:24:04Z 2021-10-27T20:24:04Z 2020 2021-01-26T18:25:05Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135571 en 10.1017/pan.2020.36 Political Analysis Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Cambridge University Press (CUP) arXiv |
| spellingShingle | Barnes, Richard Solomon, Justin Gerrymandering and Compactness: Implementation Flexibility and Abuse |
| title | Gerrymandering and Compactness: Implementation Flexibility and Abuse |
| title_full | Gerrymandering and Compactness: Implementation Flexibility and Abuse |
| title_fullStr | Gerrymandering and Compactness: Implementation Flexibility and Abuse |
| title_full_unstemmed | Gerrymandering and Compactness: Implementation Flexibility and Abuse |
| title_short | Gerrymandering and Compactness: Implementation Flexibility and Abuse |
| title_sort | gerrymandering and compactness implementation flexibility and abuse |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135571 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT barnesrichard gerrymanderingandcompactnessimplementationflexibilityandabuse AT solomonjustin gerrymanderingandcompactnessimplementationflexibilityandabuse |