This conference is part of the MAST Lecture Series organised by the Mathematics Department of the University of Luxembourg with the support of the FNR. The objective is to share the most recent developments of mathematics and their applications in the Luxembourg scientific community.
Abstract
Most countries of the world are divided up into administrative units—regions, departments, cantons, states—and into electoral units, such as districts or Luxembourg’s circonscriptions. In the U.S., the districts must be re-drawn at
regular intervals, and the process is usually controlled by politicians. For instance Pennsylvania, with its 12.7 million people, needs a partition into 18 winner-take-all districts. The number of ways to do this is staggering, and the choices have a massive impact on democratic outcomes. I’ll describe several years of work thinking about how geometry and computing can illuminate the dynamics of districting, at one point as a consultant for the governor of Pennsylvania.