Democracy Forum 3/16/18

Host: Ann Luther, League of Women Voters of Maine  
Engineer: Joel Mann

Gerrymandering: What’s the Big Deal?

How redistricting has changed over the last 50 years
Thee emergence of extreme partisan gerrymandering
Court cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court
Why it matters in Maine.

Guests:
Matt Dube, Assistant Professor in Computer Information Systems at the University of Maine in Augusta www.uma.edu/directory/staff/matthew-p-dube/
Elaine Kamark, Senior Fellow in the Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution www.brookings.edu/experts/elaine-kamarck/

To learn more about this topic:
Gerrymandering and how to fix it, from Elaine Kamark at Brookings.
The new front in the gerrymandering wars, from the New York Times Magazine, August, 2017.
We Drew 2,568 Congressional Districts By Hand. Here’s How., from the 538 Gerrymandering Project, January 25, 2018.
Mathematical Characteristics of District Boundary Lines as Indicators of Partisan Gerrymandering in U.S. House Elections, Richard J. Powell, Matthew P. Dube, and Jesse T. Clark, April, 2017.
Assessing the Causes of District Homogeneity in U.S. House Elections, Richard J. Powell, Matthew P. Dube, and Jesse T. Clark, August, 2017