A presentation on proposals brought to political leaders from the NC League of Women Voters. The presentation includes real-world examples of gerrymandering issues brought before the NC Legislature and also discusses how to improve voting maps in order to ensure equitable voting opportunities across party, race, gender and socioeconomic guidelines.

1. Questions that
mathematicians can answer
(maybe)
A view from a policy practitioner

2. 1. Include a role for the legislature in the commission, such as naming some
of the commission members
2. Include citizens and/or impartial experts as commission members as well
3. Set strict rules for the commission's work that:
 apply essential redistricting standards (compact, contiguous, keep
towns, counties, and communities of interest whole)
 do not allow the use of political data or partisan objectives
 use voting rules requiring support from both parties and independents
4. Provide for extensive citizen participation and transparency
5. Make the maps final on the commission's vote alone
Principles for Reasonable Redistricting Reform5

3. 1. Include a role for the legislature in the commission, such as naming some
of the commission members
2. Include citizens and/or impartial experts as commission members as well
3. Set strict rules for the commission's work that:
 apply essential redistricting standards (compact, contiguous, keep
towns, counties, and communities of interest whole)
 do not allow the use of political data or partisan objectives
 use voting rules requiring support from both parties and independents
4. Provide for extensive citizen participation and transparency
5. Make the maps final on the commission's vote alone
principles for reasonable redistricting reform5

4. Our big challenge: what plan can end extreme
gerrymandering and how can we get it through the
legislature
1. How do we get the majority party to support
gerrymandering reform?
2. How do we make the “business case” for reform?
3. How can we mobilize conservative voters and
donors to affect majority party legislators’ business
case

5. 1. How do we develop a standard for extreme
gerrymandering that can be communicated to understood
by ordinary people (non-mathematicians) and therefore
accepted by them?
2. How do we build in and respond to public perceptions of
fairness in both process and results?
• What does the public define the requirements for fairness?
• Is it possible to define fairness mathematically in ways that
respond to how ordinary people understand fairness?
• How can we detect/demonstrate “unfair” manipulation during the
map-drawing process?
“Fairness”

6. 3. How can we set the minimum/maximum acceptable levels for
standards (general problem)?
4. Can we provide more useful measures of compactness?
• Compactness 1: what are the cutoff points for acceptable
compactness and how do they vary in assessing
acceptability?
• Compactness 2: can we determine which measures are
better and why?
• Compactness 3: can we construct some type of well-
behaved index that combines several measures?
5. COI: Is there a way to identify communities of interest
objectively from available data?
6. NC county groups: Is Rep. Lewis’s way really the only way?
Standards

7. 7. Gerrymander signature: how much of a jump is too much
and why?
8. Would someone please do polarized voting analyses for the
legislature and other offices in NC?
9. What are the best ways to integrate MCMC maps into the
public map-drawing process? As starter maps? To assess
how far from the norm alternative maps fall? Other?
More standards

8. 10.What are the impacts of gerrymandering on long-term
dynamics, e.g., turnover vs incumbency, safe seats, abuse
of power?
11.How does gerrymandering affect non-election outcomes,
e.g., extreme partisanship, budgets for public services,
corruption, accountability, etc.?
12.How can we communicate mathematical findings and ideas
to ordinary people in ways that they can understand and
find convincing?
Making the case for reform

9. Where do gerrymanders come from, anyway?

10. Gerrymanders are descended from “Loch Ness”