[EL] An antidote for gobbledygook: the judge's mathematical toolkit

[Wang, Samuel S.]

Dear colleagues in election law,

The Supreme Court seems to be at loggerheads in establishing a standard to govern partisan gerrymandering. A sticking point appears to be the proliferation of legal theories and mathematical tests. Brian Remlinger and I have posted a review that we hope will address the situation: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3158123

The many tests may seem intimidating, perhaps to the point of being "gobbledygook," as Chief Justice Roberts so memorably put it. However, even though the tests each use different math, conceptually they fall into two major categories: (1) tests of unequal opportunity, and (2) tests of durable partisan outcome. Looking at them in this way brings order to an otherwise-unwieldy toolkit for a judge's use.

We are eager to disseminate this broadly. I don't know if it will be in time for Whitford, Benisek, and Rucho, but we thought we might send this to an online law review. Any advice, comments, or feedback would be welcome. Feel free to email me directly.

All the best,
Sam

Prof. Samuel Wang
The Princeton Gerrymandering Project
(and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute)
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08540
Email: sswang at princeton.edu<mailto:sswang at princeton.edu>
Web: gerrymander.princeton.edu<http://gerrymander.princeton.edu>

>>>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20180407/3fafb914/attachment.html>