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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ramsay, Alec
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.05114
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author Ramsay, Alec
author_facet Ramsay, Alec
contents The colloquial phrase "partisan bias" encompasses multiple distinct conceptions of bias, including partisan advantage, packing & cracking, and partisan symmetry. All are useful and have their place, and there are several proposed measures of each. While different measures frequently signal the direction of bias consistently for redistricting plans, sometimes the signals are contradictory: for example, one metric says a map is biased towards Democrats while another metric say the same map is biased towards Republicans. This happens most frequently with metrics that measure different kinds of bias, but it also occurs between measures in the same category. These inconsistencies are most pronounced in states where one party is dominant, but they also occur across the full range of partisan balance. The political geography of states also influences the frequency with which various measures are inconsistent in their assessment of bias. No subset of metrics is always internally consistent in their signal of bias.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_05114
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle 'Partisan Bias' is Like 'Cancer'
Ramsay, Alec
Physics and Society
Computers and Society
The colloquial phrase "partisan bias" encompasses multiple distinct conceptions of bias, including partisan advantage, packing & cracking, and partisan symmetry. All are useful and have their place, and there are several proposed measures of each. While different measures frequently signal the direction of bias consistently for redistricting plans, sometimes the signals are contradictory: for example, one metric says a map is biased towards Democrats while another metric say the same map is biased towards Republicans. This happens most frequently with metrics that measure different kinds of bias, but it also occurs between measures in the same category. These inconsistencies are most pronounced in states where one party is dominant, but they also occur across the full range of partisan balance. The political geography of states also influences the frequency with which various measures are inconsistent in their assessment of bias. No subset of metrics is always internally consistent in their signal of bias.
title 'Partisan Bias' is Like 'Cancer'
topic Physics and Society
Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.05114