Undergraduate Minicourse: Modeling Democracy (with Geometry and Probability)

Part 1: "Where do we live?" I'll first set up the geometry of democracy by looking at human geography and discussing how to model patterns of residential clustering and segregation.

Part 2: "How do we vote?" Next, we'll review some models for studying voting patterns and polarization. I'll discuss adding spatial dimensions to statistical models of voting behavior.

Part 3: "Systems and fairness" Then we'll bring the geometry and probability together to understand how systems of election can interact with political geography and complex preferences to give different kinds of representational outcomes. And we'll try to think in sophisticated ways about the big underlying question -- what is fair representation?