Jonathan Cervas

About

Jonathan Cervas is an Assistant Teaching Professor at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), where he studies redistricting, voting rights, and American political institutions. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from UC Irvine, with research on the Electoral College and representation, and his work appears in journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Election Law Journal, and Political Geography.

He has advised redistricting across Pennsylvania, New York, and Wisconsin — including serving as Special Master for the New York Supreme Court — pairing political geography with statistical modeling to draw and evaluate district maps. At CMU he teaches American government, representation, and electoral systems, connecting data-driven research to real-world policy.

He is also the creator of Daily District, a geography game featuring a new district every day, where players compete to identify it in the fewest guesses and the least time while learning the demographics and politics behind each district.

Selected Publications

Recent peer-reviewed work.

• Partisan Gerrymandering
  Bernard Grofman and Jonathan R. Cervas. Elgar Encyclopedia of Public Choice (book chapter), 2025.
• Partisan Gerrymandering Cases in State Supreme Courts in the 2020s Redistricting Round
  Jonathan R. Cervas, Bernard Grofman, Scott Matsuda, and Justine Kawa. Albany Law Review 87, no. 4, 2024.
• Statistical Fallacies in Claims about “Massive and Widespread Fraud” in the 2020 Presidential Election
  Bernard Grofman and Jonathan R. Cervas. Statistics and Public Policy 11, no. 1, 2023.
• The Role of State Courts in Constraining Partisan Gerrymandering in Congressional Elections
  Jonathan R. Cervas, Bernard Grofman, and Scott Matsuda. University of New Hampshire Law Review 21, no. 2, 2023.
• Using Folded Seats-Votes Curves to Compare Partisan Bias in the 2020 Presidential Election with Other 21st Century Elections
  Jonathan R. Cervas and Bernard Grofman. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 2022.

Redistricting & Legal Work

Court-appointed roles as Special Master, consultant, and expert witness in redistricting and voting-rights cases across the United States.

• Wisconsin — Court co-consultant, Clarke v. WEC (2024)
• New York — Special Master, Harkenrider v. Hochul (2022)
• Pennsylvania — Consultant, Legislative Reapportionment Commission (2021–2022)
• Alabama — Remedial plans, Allen v. Milligan (2023)
• Nassau County, NY — Expert witness, NY Communities for Change v. Nassau (2025)