Redistricting Utopia 2 Abstract
Walker Lindley and Randy Bentson

    Throughout the history of America, there have been many issues surrounding fair voting. One problem involves the creation of unfair voting districts. Redistricting is often very contentious and can have a huge impact on the way future elections turn out (the 2004 redistricting in Texas is a prime example of this). Last summer we created a program that created fair redistricting plans. Our program relied on a genetic algorithm to simulate an evolution of many different possible redistricting plans until an acceptable one was found. We also began work on importing the state's GIS data so that we could test our program by creating a fair redistricting plan for the state of Washington. This summer we plan to finish the process of importing the state's data and, if successful, begin importing data from other states as well. We will also apply the experience we gained last summer and further investigation done during the school year to improve our genetic algorithm in the hopes of finding better redistricting plans. Finally, we hope to include a second student in the project who's job will be to examine the impact our redistricting plans would have had on previous elections and research other factors that we might want to take into account when creating a redistricting plan.