Generally, a simple look at a map will determine unconstitutional gerrymandering.

There are exceptions, and I suppose this formula would be necessary in that case, but generally, it's obvious.

There are also relatively benign reasons for a modest amount of gerrymandering, such as lumping minority voters together in a single district to give them representation of their own. So it's only when the funny-looking districts overwhelmingly favor one party over the other that you can say the state as a whole has been gerrymandered.

Particularly where you're adding continguous areas in, to crack or pack a district.

For instance consider a state with one large urban area representing nearly half the state population, and the rest small cities, towns, and rural spaces, with a total of six CDs. The central urban area is deep blue, but it is surrounded by bright red suburbs. The northern end of the state with rural territory and a few small cities may be blue-with-purple bits, the south with a small city and lots of rural area deep red with a few purple bits in the city. Pre-gerrymandering, this state reliably sent three Democrats and two Republicans to Congress, and usually four Democrats and two Republicans. Occasionally one seat that represented northern rural areas plus the north outlying urban suburbs switched up to GOP, but usually the balance was 4/2 and 3 of the Dem seats were quite reliable.

Perfectly legitimate-appearing maps can be drawn, That would "crack" two of the dark blue mostly-urban districts by creating a packed "central" district conceded to the Dems, and pulling contiguous purply neighborhoods into line with those bright red burbs, putting one more into the GOP bag, tipping the balance on that switcheroo district to "reliable GOP" and leaving one more district up for grabs. Then you have your reliable GOP south district, your mostly-blue north end, and hey, presto! A perfectly reasonable map has changed the state balance to 3 GOP, 2 Dem and a switcheroo.

BUT with half the state's population in the bright blue Big City, this model would indicate exactly how those votes have been laid to waste.

I like it!

interestedly,
Bright

I grew up on the South Shore of Long Island. We had a very progressive Congressman Allard Lowenstein from 1968-70.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allard_K._Lowenstein

The NY state legislature gerrymandered the district to remove a number of Democratic towns and to add a predominantly Republican town. As a result, we had more than 20 years of Republican representatives until the districts were eventually adjusted. The gerrymandered district didn't look particularly unusual. However, if you dig deeper, you would find that there was a religious minority component to the redistricting, similar to the tactics Republicans are using today with racial minorities. Several heavily Jewish towns (Democratic) were removed and a Catholic town (Republican) was added to dilute the Jewish vote. I'm glad someone is now using some more sophisticated analysis to identify the more insidious examples of gerrymandering!

just have a pedestrian understanding of it.

The op seems a bit complicated to wrap my head around in terms of the "wasted" votes, (what does that actually mean, disenfranchisement? ) but I also understand it's legalese for court purposes.

The formulas that the scholars present can actually be used to determine gerrymandering without resorting to "expert" opinions or other soft and biased methods.

If you want to prove gerrymandering, then simply add up the votes and do the math. No opinions required. This can be enacted as legislation or a court can order it.

Of course, the formula isn't foolproof. It assumes that voters always vote for one party or another. If there is a big swing in popular sentiment, and people switch parties, it may break the algorithm.

Courts need to base decisions on facts. And a fact is; Something that can be measured. So of course they need to have these formula's if they expect to win.

Even if outside is a frozen wasteland, a statement like, "It is cold outside" is only an opinion. If one were to say, "It is -25 degrees outside," then that is based on a measurement and can be considered a fact (if it is correct).

So a court needs to have facts to consider or the case will just get thrown out.

Git 'er done today!!!