I’ve been thinking about gerrymandering recently, specifically how to design algorithms to gerrymander and to detect gerrymandering.
Whence “Gerrymander”?
First thing’s first. According to wikipedia (and my friend Michael Thaddeus), the term “Gerrymander” is a mash-up of a dude named Elbridge Gerry and the word “salamander.” It was concocted when Gerry got made fun of for his crazy districting of Massachusetts back in 1812 to push out the power of the Federalists:
It’s true, this is depicted as a dragon. But believe me, someone thought it looked like a salamander.
How To Gerrymander
Think about it. In this crazy pseudo-democratic world of ours, we’re still voting locally and asking delegates to ride their horses to a centralized location to cast a vote for the group. The system was invented well before the internet, and it is a ridiculous and unnecessary artifact from the days when information didn’t travel well. In particular…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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