Retired professor places third in gerrymander writing competition

Ted Arrington, professor emeritus of political science and public administration, authored the third-place entry for Common Cause’s second annual Gerrymander Standard Writing Competition.

Arrington’s paper presented a “workable criteria for determining when districting arrangements so distort the process of translating votes into seats in a legislature that the process or the redistricting plan rises to a constitutional violation.”

Common Cause sponsored this national contest to generate measurements for partisan gerrymandering that could be used in court.

Arrington, who retired in 2010, has been an expert witness in more than 40 voting rights cases in the United States and Canada, and he has been retained in voting rights litigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Voting Section. His testimony has been cited in several precedent-setting cases such as Gingles v. Edmisten and United States v. Ike Brown et al.

Wendy Tam Cho and Yan Liu from the University of Illinois placed first in this national contest; Princeton University’s Samuel Wang won second place.

Winners received cash prizes, and their papers will be published in Election Law Journal.

Common Cause’s stated mission is to “work to create open, honest and accountable government that serves the public interest; promote equal rights, opportunity and representation for all; and empower all people to make their voices heard in the political process.”