Abstract: It is almost universally acknowledged that partisan Gerrymandering, the art of drawing electoral districts so as to favor one political party over another, is a festering problem within American democracy. Yet there is no clear consensus on the best solution. In this talk, I will present a computer scientist's solution, drawing on ideas from the field of fair division: design an interactive protocol with participation from both parties whereby, under purely self-interested play, we arrive at a mutually fair outcome. There are numerous challenges with properly framing this approach, as well as defining the meaning of "fair." I will sample from a handful of papers that grapple with these issues and present intriguing protocols for fair redistricting. I will primarily focus on a recent paper that adapts the classic cake-cutting model to the setting of redistricting and proposes a novel protocol which ensures fairness even when parties disagree over the distribution of voters.
The CICS Theory Seminar is free and open to the public. If you are interested in giving a talk, please email Cameron Musco or Rik Sengupta. Note that in addition to being a public lecture series, this is also a one-credit graduate seminar (CompSci 891M) that can be taken repeatedly for credit.