POS2401 Discussion 4

Gerrymandering
For this discussion, we will pretend to be legislators in charge of drawing our own districts. We want districts that our party will always win. Post a picture of your finished districts to the discussion board.

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Download and either open it in Word or print: Redistricting Exercise American.docx

2. This state contains equal numbers of voters who support the Democrat and Republican parties. Democrat voters live in the grayed zones, Republican voters live in the clear zones. Each box contains the same number of people.

3. The state has 200 zones of voters total and 10 representatives, so it needs 10 electoral districts drawn, each with 20 zones of voters within it. Each district must contain 20 zones and must be fully contiguous/connected (no diagonal connections).

4. Pick one party to support and draw 10 districts composed of 20 zones each that maximize your party’s support. Remember, you need a majority of voters to win a district (11 zones).

5. Take a pic or scan of your final district lines and post to the board (or just save your Word doc and post it),

6. In your post, tell us what was the maximum number of districts you were able to win for your party? Also, what strategy did you use to maximize your party’s representation?

COMPLETION OF THIS DISCUSSION WILL HELP YOU MEET MODULE OBJECTIVE D.

Solution Preview

The party that I chose is the Democratic Party. The choice was the Democratic Party that is represented by grey in the map. The total number of districts that Democratic Party won was 6 districts out of the ten districts. This is the majority of the districts in the state. The engine that was driving our campaign was the generational change in the state.

(293 words)