The factors we consider for each district when redrawing plans: - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

The factors

we consider for each district when redrawing plans:

The

populations

of all districts are about equal and minority populations are in accordance with the Votings Rights Act of 1965.

so this is better

than this

Compactness Energy

ensures geographically compact districts.

Minimize the number

of

split counties

METHOD & ENERGIES

Christy Vaughn

Sachet Bangia Bridget DouSophie Guo

Propose a precinct on a district boundary to move into the neighboring district.Accept or reject the change based on new vs. current district energies (see below) and the Metropolis Hastings Algorithm.After many changes, re-tabulate election results using actual vote data

The way we redraw districts (beginning with actual districting); we are using Markov Chain Monte Carlo Simulations for our distribution: Slide2

RESULTS

Distribution of Average Margin of Victories vs.

Actual Average Margin of Victories, Based on 2012 House Data

Projected Number of Democrats Elected to US House in NC, 2012

There is some evidence of bias in the redistricting process. Even in cases where the seats-split matched that of our randomly drawn samples, the margin of victories were often larger, as seen above.Our results on the left also so far seem to prefer bipartisan committees (IA) plans over those drawn solely by the state legislature (NC, MD). In addition, it is interesting to note the

effect of the Majority-Minority Energy on the distribution of Demo-

crats elected to office, as seen above.