The Math Behind Gerrymandering and Wasted Votes — Quanta Magazine

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering a case about partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin and Texas. One of the keys to the case is the “efficiency gap”, an attempt quantify the partisan bias in a given electoral map. For my latest article in Quanta Magazine, I explain and explore the efficiency gap using simple examples, and talk about some of the implications of this particular measurement.

Imagine fighting a war on 10 battlefields. You and your opponent each have 200 soldiers, and your aim is to win as many battles as possible. How would you deploy your troops? If you spread them out evenly, sending 20 to each battlefield, your opponent could concentrate their own troops and easily win a majority of the fights. You could try to overwhelm several locations yourself, but there’s no guarantee you’ll win, and you’ll leave the remaining battlefields poorly defended. Devising a winning strategy isn’t easy, but as long as neither side knows the other’s plan in advance, it’s a fair fight.

Now imagine your opponent has the power to deploy your troops as well as their own. Even if you get more troops, you can’t win.

The full article is freely available here.