✦ LIBER ✦

Taming the Gerrymander—Statistical physics approach to Political Districting Problem

✍ Scribed by Chung-I Chou; S.P. Li

Publisher: Elsevier Science
Year: 2006
Tongue: English
Weight: 414 KB
Volume: 369
Category: Article
ISSN: 0378-4371
DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2006.01.082

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✦ Synopsis

The Political Districting Problem is mapped to a q-state Potts model in which the constraints can be written as interactions between sites or external fields acting on the system. Districting into q voter districts is equivalent to finding the ground state of this q-state Potts model. We illustrate this by districting Taipei city in its 2008 Legislature Election. Statistical properties of the model are also studied.