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20 

GILL v. WHITFORD 

Opinion of the Court 

larger the number produced by that calculation, the greater 
the  asymmetry  between  the  parties  in  their  efficiency  in
converting  votes  into  legislative  seats.    Though  they  take
no firm position on the matter, the plaintiffs have suggested
that  an  efficiency  gap  in  the  range  of  7%  to  10%  should 
trigger  constitutional  scrutiny.    See  Brief  for  Appellees 
52–53, and n. 17. 

The plaintiffs and their amici curiae promise us that the
efficiency  gap  and  similar  measures  of  partisan  asym­
metry  will  allow  the  federal  courts—armed  with  just  “a 
pencil and paper or a hand calculator”—to finally solve the
problem  of  partisan  gerrymandering  that  has  confounded 
the Court for decades.  Brief for Heather K. Gerken et al. 
as  Amici  Curiae  27  (citing  Wang,  Let  Math  Save  Our 
Democracy, N. Y. Times, Dec. 5, 2015).  We need not doubt 
the  plaintiffs’  math.  The  difficulty  for  standing  purposes 
is  that  these  calculations  are  an  average  measure.    They
do  not  address  the  effect  that  a  gerrymander  has  on  the 
votes  of  particular  citizens.    Partisan-asymmetry  metrics
such  as  the  efficiency  gap  measure  something  else  en- 
tirely: the effect that a gerrymander has on the fortunes of
political parties.

Consider  the  situation  of  Professor  Whitford,  who  lives 
in  District  76,  where,  defendants  contend,  Democrats  are 
“naturally”  packed  due  to  their  geographic  concentration,
with  that  of  plaintiff  Mary  Lynne  Donohue,  who  lives  in 
Assembly District 26 in Sheboygan, where Democrats like 
her  have  allegedly  been  deliberately  cracked.  By  all  ac­
counts,  Act  43  has  not  affected  Whitford’s  individual  vote 
for  his  Assembly  representative—even  plaintiffs’  own 
demonstration  map  resulted  in  a  virtually  identical  dis­
trict for him.  Donohue, on the other hand, alleges that Act 
43  burdened  her  individual  vote.  Yet  neither  the  effi- 
ciency gap nor the other measures of partisan asymmetry
offered  by  the  plaintiffs  are  capable  of  telling  the  differ­
ence between what Act 43 did to Whitford and what it did