Projekt

For every German federal election the 299 constituencies have to be adjusted in order to obey all legal requirements. Electoral equality requires that the population of every constituency has to be nearly the same. Strict limits for deviations from the average are defined by law. Demographic changes require regular updates. Further, a high degree of stability of the constituencies is a desirable property. Current practice has exploited the deviation limits to a almost full extent. As a consequence of this fragility, for every election even comparatively slight changes in the population distribution will cause a demand for restructuring the constituencies. Furthermore, all planning is currently done by hand, and the process has natural limits concerning transparency. The idea is to demonstrate that mathematical optimization can support electorial districting for the German Bundestag. Models and algorithms packaged in a ready-to-use planning tool will be realized allowing for fair and transparent districting.

• Prof. Dr. Marco Lübbecke

  Rheinisch-Westfälische
  Technische Hochschule Aachen
  Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften
  Lehrstuhl für Operations Research &
  Fachgruppe Mathematik
  Aachen
  

• Prof. Dr. Arie Koster

  Rheinisch-Westfälische
  Technische Hochschule Aachen
  Fachbereich Mathematik
  Lehrstuhl II für Mathematik
  Aachen