Ariel Procaccia, Columnist

Let’s Raffle Off Congressional Seats

New York lost its 27th Congress member after the latest U.S. census. A dose of randomness could have given it a fairer chance to hold on.

May 5, 2021 at 12:30 PM UTC

By Ariel Procaccia

Ariel Procaccia is Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University. His areas of expertise include artificial intelligence, theoretical computer science and algorithmic game theory.

Give or take a few ...
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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Measured by the 2020 U.S. census, New York State deserves 26.56 seats in the House of Representatives. But it’s getting 26 for the next 10 years. Somehow, it doesn’t seem fair.

The difficulty, at its core, is mathematical.