Title: Tackling electoral manipulation with geometry and graph theory
Presented By: Herng Yi Cheng, University of Toronto

Abstract:
Can geometry, graph theory and probability theory counter the manipulation of elections? A growing body of math research tackles gerrymandering, which is the practice of redrawing boundaries between voting districts to favour one's own political party, such as by splitting up communities of opposition. Let us amuse ourselves with some really weird-looking gerrymandered district maps, while I review some geometric measures of "niceness of shape" proposed to disqualify obvious cases of manipulation. I will then focus on the recent strategy of sampling the universe of possible district maps using random walks, in order to identify "outlier" maps. This approach has been cited favourably by the US Supreme Court, which invites us to wonder: what could closer collaboration between mathematicians and civil society look like?

Biography:
Herng Yi Cheng is a new Math graduate student at Unversity of Toronto. Previously he was at MIT. He did a summer internship with Alec Jacobson via the Fields Institute.

*Lunch will be provided