2013/06/27 by Jowei Chen, Jonathan Rodden · 5 citations
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies #Spatial and Panel Data Analysis
paper · doi:10.1561/100.00012033
openalex publication_date 2013/06/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
While conventional wisdom holds that partisan bias in U.S. legislative elections results from intentional partisan and racial gerrymandering, we demonstrate that substantial bias can also emerge from patterns of human geography. We show that in many states, Democrats are inefficiently concentrated in large cities and smaller industrial agglomerations such that they can expect to win fewer than 50% of the seats when they win 50% of the votes. To measure this “unintentional gerrymandering,” we use automated districting simulations based on precinct-level 2000 presidential election results in several states. Our results illustrate a strong relationship between the geographic concentration of Democratic voters and electoral bias favoring Republicans.