Bed Time Research Institute

Political Redistricting (2008-Present)

Institute for Computational Redistricting

Facilitating transparency through algorithmic redistricting

Papers Published

1.    King, D.M., Jacobson, S.H., Sewell, E.C., Cho, W.K. Tam, 2012, “Geo-Graphs: An Efficient Model for Enforcing Contiguity and Hole

Constraints in Planar Graph Partitioning,” Operations Research, 60(5), 1213-1228.

2.    King, D.M., Jacobson, S.H., Sewell, E.C., 2015, “Efficient Geo-Graph Contiguity and Hole Algorithms for Geographic Zoning and Dynamic Plane Graph Partitioning,Mathematical Programming, Series A, 149(1&2), 425-457.

3.    King, D.M., Jacobson, S.H., Sewell, E.C., 2018, “The Geo-Graph in Practice: Creating United States Congressional Districts from Census Blocks,Computational Optimization and Applications, 69(1), 25-49.

Media Coverage

(3 October 2017) Algorithms Supercharged Gerrymandering. We Should Use Them to Fix it (Daniel Oberhaus, Motherboard) reports commentary by Sheldon H. Jacobson on his algorithm research related to political redistricting.  See also Can Algorithms Put a Stop to Political Gerrymandering? (Emily Moon, Pacific Standard, 4 October 2017).

 

(11 September 2017) Study: Congressional redistricting less contentious when resolved using computer algorithm,  based on the paper “The Geo-Graph in Practice: Creating United States Congressional Districts from Census Blocks,” which will appear in Combinatorial Optimization and Applications.  See also It is time to set political boundaries (Innovation Magazine, 12 September 2017), New Algorithm Makes Congressional Redistricting More Equitable to Constituents (Sioban Treacy, Electronics 360, 13 September 2017).

 

Students Involved

Douglas M. King (2008-2012)

Rahul Swamy (2016-Present)

Ian Ludden (2017-Present)

 

Last updated: 1 February 2019

URL address: BTRI

 

Contact Information: Sheldon H. Jacobson, 217-244-7275, email, twitter