Challenging gerrymandering

Guests: Carol Kuniholm, Sam Wang

Pennsylvania routinely tops the list as the one of the country’s most gerrymandered states and commonwealths. Take a look at the geometry of the Keystone State’s congressional districts and you’ll see a lot of strange, contorted shapes. A lawsuit filed with Commonwealth Court asserts that the 2011 Congressional map was drawn for political gain. Similar suits have sprung up around the country and the Supreme Court recently heard arguments in Gill v. Whitford, a case challenging Wisconsin’s redistricting plan. Today, we’ll discuss partisan gerrymandering, how software and big data enable the practice, the effect it has on our democracy and what can be done to make redistricting fairer and more transparent. Marty’s guests are CAROL KUNIHOLM, co-chair of Fair Districts PA, and SAM WANG, a data scientist and neuroscience professor at Princeton University.