# A formula goes to court: Partisan gerrymandering and the efficiency gap

• Published in 2017
In the collection
Recently, a proposal has been advanced to detect unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering with a simple formula called the efficiency gap. The efficiency gap is now working its way towards a possible landmark case in the Supreme Court. This note explores some of its mathematical properties in light of the fact that it reduces to a straight proportional comparison of votes to seats. Though we offer several critiques, we assess that EG can still be a useful component of a courtroom analysis. But a famous formula can take on a life of its own and this one will need to be watched closely.

### BibTeX entry

@article{AformulagoestocourtPartisangerrymanderingandtheefficiencygap,
title = {A formula goes to court: Partisan gerrymandering and the efficiency gap},
abstract = {Recently, a proposal has been advanced to detect unconstitutional partisan
gerrymandering with a simple formula called the efficiency gap. The efficiency
gap is now working its way towards a possible landmark case in the Supreme
Court. This note explores some of its mathematical properties in light of the
fact that it reduces to a straight proportional comparison of votes to seats.
Though we offer several critiques, we assess that EG can still be a useful
component of a courtroom analysis. But a famous formula can take on a life of
its own and this one will need to be watched closely.},
url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1705.10812v1 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.10812v1},
author = {Mira Bernstein and Moon Duchin},
comment = {},
urldate = {2017-06-16},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
eprint = {1705.10812},
primaryClass = {physics.soc-ph},
year = 2017,
collections = {Protocols and strategies}
}