Political geometry: the mathematics of gerrymandering

Abstract: Gerrymandering is the drawing of Congressional district lines for political advantage, and it’s been in the news a lot recently. Mathematicians have been instrumental in creating tools to identify when a districting plan is gerrymandered: Professor Moon Duchin of Tufts helped Pennsylvania throw out its gerrymandered districting map, and a group of mathematicians contributed important supporting evidence in the recent (March 2019) Supreme Court case about gerrymandering in Maryland and North Carolina. We’ll explain how geometry and statistics can help us detect gerrymandering, and you’ll get a chance to draw the lines and see how it works.