A Duke University professor spoke at the Memorial Union Tuesday about the impact of gerrymandering on fairness and representation in Congress.

Jonathan Mattingly, a professor of mathematics and statistical science at Duke, researches the redrawing of districts every ten years as a part of the census. Mattingly is part of the “Quantifying Gerrymandering Team” at Duke, which also includes colleague Greg Herschlag.

Mattingly received his PhD in applied and computational mathematics from Princeton University.

The term gerrymandering, coined after former U.S. Vice President Elbridge Gerry, is the act of manipulating district boundaries of an electoral constituency, often favoring one party or diluting minority interests.

Mattingly began looking into gerrymandering with the North Carolina congressional election in 2012.

“The question is, ‘What would have happened without political input? What would have happened if you hadn’t put any external… if somebody hadn’t politically put their thumb on the scale?” Mattingly said.

The shift in political control has influenced the redistricting process, Mattingly said, often leading the maps to reflect the political priorities of the party in power.

“As it happened, for the last decade, many state legislatures that are in purple states have been controlled by Republicans,” Mattingly said.

He said that this was not always the case. Only one “swing” state – Nevada – has its redistricting controlled by Democrats, compared to the other states that have Republican-controlled legislatures or independent/bipartisan commissions draw maps.

While variables like geography may be used as an excuse for gerrymandering, he said the remedy is not more competitive elections – rather responsive maps.

“People often say we need more competitive elections,” Mattingly said. “I wanna argue that competitiveness is not the right term.”

Mattingly said that we should not want all districts to be flippable or competitive because when political headwinds come, the makeup of the districts will have an entirely different makeup.

“We don’t actually want a whole bunch of elections where each of your districts are close to 50-50,” Mattingly said. “Because then when the political winds change one way or the other, those districts won’t be close to 50-50.”

This approach, according to Mattingly, could ensure representatives face more concern over losing their next election.

“What we want is at any given moment, a number of representatives in danger of losing their seats,” Mattingly said.

He said in this way, representatives are more “responsive” to their constituents.

“We want to be responsive,” Mattingly said. “[We] want somebody in the delegation to be speaking for the middle, to be worrying about who’s gonna lose their [seat].”

Much of Mattingly’s lecture revolved around the state of North Carolina – in which Duke is located. He explained that if North Carolina’s congressional map hadn’t been thrown out a few years ago, the final 2024 House result would have been different.

Duke’s quantifying gerrymandering team has been involved in many redistricting court cases in the state of North Carolina, and he has been in court many times.

Mattingly also explained that this is not a partisan issue – saying “blue” states like Maryland currently have a democratic gerrymander.

“There’s a lot of work to be done,” Mattingly said.

The lecture was attended by roughly 60 people and will be available on the available recordings page about 24-36 hours after the lecture concludes.