Introduction to the declination function for gerrymanders

Abstract

The declination is a quantitative method for identifying possible partisan gerrymanders by analyzing vote distributions. In this expository note we explain and motivate the definition of the declination. The minimal computer code required for computing the declination is included. We end by computing its value on several recent elections.

8 pages, 11 figures, python code, introduction to work in arXiv:1705.09393