The Project
The ALARM Project is a research team at Harvard University led by Kosuke Imai. It conducts research into redistricting sampling algorithms, best practices and workflows for redistricting analysis, and tools to visualize, explore, and understand redistricting plans. ALARM Project researchers develop redist, an open-source R package for redistricting simulation and analysis which implements state-of-the-art MCMC and SMC redistricting sampling algorithms. The package allows for the implementation of various constraints in the redistricting process such as geographic compactness and population parity requirements, and includes tools to compute various summary statistics and create useful plots.
People
- Tahmid Ahmed, Harvard College
- Ben Fifield, American Civil Liberties Union
- Kosuke Imai, Departments of Government and Statistics, Harvard University
- Christopher Kenny, Department of Government, Harvard University
- Shiro Kuriwaki, Department of Political Science, Stanford University
- Sho Miyazaki, Keio University
- Cory McCartan, Department of Statistics, Harvard University
- Sneha Revanur
- Evan Rosenman, Harvard Data Science Initiative
- Tyler Simko, Department of Government, Harvard University
- Sam Thau, Harvard College
- Melissa Wu
- Kento Yamada, Harvard College
- Rei Yatsuhashi, Harvard College
Publications
- Automated Redistricting Simulation Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics (2020) Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 715-728.
- The Essential Role of Empirical Validation in Legislative Redistricting Simulation Statistics and Public Policy Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 52-68.
- Sequential Monte Carlo for Sampling Balanced and Compact Redistricting Plans
- The Impact of the U.S. Census Disclosure Avoidance System on Redistricting and Voting Rights Analysis
Related R Packages
- blockpop: Estimate Census Block Populations for 2020. McCartan (2021).
- geomander: Geographic Tools for Studying Gerrymandering. Kenny (2021).
- PL94171: Tabulate P.L. 94-171 Redistricting Data Summary Files. McCartan and Kenny (2021).
- ppmf: Read Census Privacy Protected Microdata Files. Kenny (2021).
- redist: Simulation Methods for Legislative Redistricting. Kenny, McCartan, Fifield, and Imai (2021).
- wru: Who Are You? Bayesian Prediction of Racial Category Using Surname and Geolocation. Khanna and Imai (2021).