The linked article is for SIAM News, the magazine for members of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). The audience for this magazine, in other words, is professional mathematicians and related researchers working in a wide variety of fields. While this article contains equations, I wrote it to be understandable even if you gloss over the math.

[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ]

The Mathematical Fight for Voting Rights

For SIAM News:

State and local governments will redraw voting districts based on new information following completion of the 2020 U.S. Census. Ideally, this process ensures fair representation. In practice, however, districting often involves gerrymandering: the deliberate planning of districts to dilute the voting power of certain groups in favor of others, which violates the law.

Racial gerrymandering—drawing districts to limit the power of voters of color to select candidates they favor—is a particularly pernicious problem. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 specifically prohibits this practice, but that has not stopped authorities from doing it anyway. “A number of court decisions have purposefully asked mathematicians, political scientists, and statisticians to use specific methods to try and understand racial gerrymandering,” Matt Barreto, a professor of political science and Chicana/o studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, said.

Barreto and his colleagues employ powerful statistical methods and draw on census and other public data to identify gerrymandered districts. Utilizing these tools, mathematicians can test proposed district maps or draw their own, designing them from the ground up to prevent voter dilution.

[Read the rest at SIAM News…]