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Is Non-Partisan Redistricting Possible? A Former Judge And A Mathematician Think So

Image of three different maps of North Carolina, with different districts.
Courtesy of Jonathan Mattingly

In the past few months, the courts have found fault with North Carolina’s state and congressional maps. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling that state legislative districts are unconstitutional because of racial gerrymandering, and last month a three-judge panel in federal court determined that there is partisan gerrymandering in the state’s congressional districts. 

Republicans in the General Assembly drew both sets of maps. As these two legal cases continue to make their way through courts, host Frank Stasio talks with two researchers working to create less partisan maps: Duke mathematician Jonathan Mattingly discusses the tool he created to determine partisan gerrymandering and Tom Ross, former judge and president emeritus of the University of North Carolina System, shares a simulation he created of a bipartisan, independent redistricting commission that was tasked with redrawing maps.

Find out more about Mattingly's work here. Find out more about Ross's work here.

 

Amanda Magnus is the executive producer of Embodied, a weekly radio show and podcast about sex, relationships and health. She has also worked on other WUNC shows including Tested and CREEP.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
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