Skip to main content
ABC News
Politics Podcast: Can Statistics Solve Gerrymandering?
FiveThirtyEight
 

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering on Tuesday. The court is again considering whether lawmakers are allowed to draw district lines meant to dramatically benefit one party over another and — if not — how the courts should judge when lawmakers go too far.

In this episode of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, mathematician Moon Duchin explains a statistical method for determining when maps become too partisan. On Tuesday, the justices discussed her proposed method, but we’ll have to wait to see whether they were convinced that it’s a potential solution.

This episode is part of our FiveThirtyEight On The Road series, which is brought to you by WeWork. You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN app or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Monday evenings, with additional episodes throughout the week. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.

Galen Druke is FiveThirtyEight’s podcast producer and reporter.

Nate Silver is the founder and editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight.

Comments