Utility Ghost: Gamified redistricting with partisan symmetry

Abstract

Inspired by the word game Ghost, we propose a new protocol for bipartisan redistricting in which partisan players take turns assigning precincts to districts. We prove that in an idealized setting, if both parties have the same number votes, then under optimal play in our protocol, both parties win the same number of seats. We also evaluate our protocol in more realistic settings that show how our game nearly eliminates the first-player advantage exhibited in other redistricting protocols.