Life of the Party: Primaries, Gerrymandering, and Other Electoral Shenanigans

Joint work (in different papers) with Yoram Bachrach, Allan Borodin, Yoad Lewenberg, Jeffrey S. Rosenschein, Nisarg Shah, Tyrone Strangway, and Yair Zick.

Abstract:  In the last few years, the effects primaries and gerrymandering have on election outcomes became a commonly debated issue, particularly in the U.S. Both primaries (candidate selection by parties) and district-based elections are examples of mechanisms that involve adding stages to the voting procedure. I will discuss several results on how these particular stages change elections, including the effect parties may have on the quality of winners, bounds on how the use of districts can change election outcomes (“price of districting”), and how population distribution affects the possibility of manipulation of the districts ("gerrymandering power").