A group of SMU mathematicians and one philosopher are using math to measure how biased voting district maps are in Texas. The group, called Math for Unbiased...
Of the 1.5 million maps that the team generated and analyzed to compare to the final proposed Texas congressional district map, not a single baseline map showed levels of bias as high.
With their findings in hand, the SMU team reached out to all members of the Texas subcommittees involved in redistricting, as well as the researchers’ own local legislators. “What gerrymandering really is, is putting your thumb on the scale to engineer a result that you like, to the detriment of people that you don’t like, whether that’s people of a different political party or people of a different race,” said Michael Li, senior counsel for the Democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. He is not involved or affiliated with the SMU research group.
In addition to dampening the need for officials to earn votes, gerrymandering can also leave large numbers of voters in a district with a representative who is out of touch with their community, said SMU researchers. But political gerrymandering is not the only type of gerrymandering with a long history in the U.S. Racially-motivated gerrymandering has long been used to dampen the voices of minority voters.
Fighting gerrymandering is not a high priority for most voters, and it’s a challenge for citizens to get involved because the process is complicated and moves so quickly, said Matthew Wilson, an SMU associate professor of political science who consulted with the SMU researchers.
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