Our Mission

The Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group (MGGG) is a Boston-based working group led by Moon Duchin of Tufts University and Justin Solomon of MIT. Our mission is to study applications of geometry and computing to U.S. redistricting. We believe that gerrymandering of all kinds is a fundamental threat to our democracy.

Our goals are these:

• to pursue cutting-edge research in the basic science and practically relevant applications of geometry, topology, and computing to the redistricting problem;
• to build open-source tools and resources that create public access and analytical power for better understanding districts and their consequences;
• to partner with civil rights organizations to reexamine and strengthen the quantitative toolkit for protecting voting rights;
• to offer formal and informal expert consulting to stakeholders on all sides.

Highlights

• Election Reform in Lowell, MA

  MGGG

  21 October 2019

  Two years ago, the City of Lowell was sued because its system of election was said to prevent minority communities from being represented in city government. For example, even though there are 9 members of the City Council—and nearly half of Lowell’s population is Asian or Hispanic—there have only been 2 people of color elected to the City Council in 20 years!

• Measuring Competitiveness

  MGGG

  15 October 2019

  What is a competitive election, anyway? At first it may sound like an obvious question, but it turns out to be hard to specify. Even more subtle is to figure out what exactly we might mean by saying that one districting plan is more competitive than another.

• 

  Election Geodata

  Ruth Buck and MGGG

  23 September 2019

  In most cases, the finest level of geography election results are reported at is the precinct. However, the frequency with which precincts change and the absence in many states of strong data transparency laws can prove to be a significant barrier in compiling election data for redistricting research. Hosted on the GitHub organization mggg-states are the precinct-level election geodata MGGG has compiled for its research and for the open-source web app Districtr.

The Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group is a nonpartisan research organization. MGGG has major support from the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University and the Amar G. Bose Research Grant Program at MIT and an active partnership with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.