Party Lines

In 2016, a North Carolina legislator announced that his party would be redrawing the state’s congressional district map with a particular goal in mind: To elect “10 Republicans and three Democrats.” His reasoning for this? As he explained, he did “not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.” It was a blatant admission of gerrymandering in a state already known for creatively-drawn districts. But that might be about to change. A North Carolina mathematician has come up with a way to quantify just how rigged a map is. And now he’s taking his math to court, in a case that could end up redrawing district lines across the country.

You can listen to Party Lines online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Party Lines is an episode from Undiscovered by Science Friday and WNYC Studios.

This episode is 00:29:43 long.

This episode was published on Oct 30, 2018.

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