Multiple lawsuits over redistricting of maps due to alleged gerrymandering have relied upon experts who used computer-generated maps as evidence of unfair drawing practices, The Washington Post reports.
Controversy over Ohio's redistricting led Harvard University mathematicians Kosuke Imai and Cory McCartan to use an algorithm they created to simulate 5,000 maps of Ohio, and a court noted in an order to have the map redrawn that "of those simulated plans, none was as favorable to Republicans as the adopted plan."
Elections analyst Sean Trende later used this algorithm to simulate 10,000 maps of New York, after being hired by plaintiffs in the case against the state's map and testified that the map produced by the New York Legislature was an "extreme outlier" when compared to the algorithm's maps.
Imai and McCarten have since joined six other scientists to establish the 50-State Redistricting Simulations project to create sets of 5,000 maps for every state. However, some experts expressed concerns about how these methods are presented in court.
Postdoctoral researcher Zachary Schutzman at MIT's Institute for Data, Systems, and Society told the Post that "Judges are not mathematical people." Because of that "there is this effort to win by wowing the judge while also not really going into any of the detail that might bore the judge."
Tufts University mathematician Moon Duchin, who the Post says "has done more than perhaps anyone else to advance the mathematical theory underlying algorithmic redistricting," noted that a sample size of 5,000 maps is "widely inadequate."