Vue Con 2017
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Abstract
Congressional gerrymandering is a topic of a large amount of controversy in the United States. Gerrymandering is the process by which a state legislature redraws boundaries in congressional districts in order to give one party a numerical advantage over another party. One visual sign as to whether gerrymandering has occurred in a congressional district is by the oddly-shaped districts that it produces, as shown in the six districts below. While many alternative redistricting schemes have been suggested, none have successfully been implemented on a wide-scale basis. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has yet to rule on the constitutionality of gerrymandering, thereby allowing state legislatures to continue the practice. Many of the potential solutions to gerrymandering involve computer-generated algorithms. These algorithms, however, do not take into account county divisions. This means that big cities could be divided and organizational structures could be compromised if such methods were used. This research experiment explores mitigating the effects of gerrymandering while still keeping county organization intact, so that disorganization would not ensue with the creation of the new redistricting scheme.