New York State Congressional Districting
New York State Congressional Districts Proposed by IRC, legislation, and court in 2022
Gerrymandering in Proposed 2022 NYS Congressional Districts
The delineation of electoral district boundaries is a fundamental component of democratic practice in the United States. However, gerrymandering—the manipulation of district boundaries to favor specific interest groups—undermines this process and often leads to contentious debates and legal battles. The website shows four sets of New York State’s 2022 congressional district maps for signs of gerrymandering. These maps were proposed by the Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC), the State Legislature, and the State Court, respectively.
I employed a quantitative metric that integrate factors such as population distribution, state boundaries, and spatial topology to assess district compactness and to identify gerrymandering. The results indicate that the Court-drawn congressional districts exhibit considerably lower levels of gerrymandering than the maps proposed by the IRC and the State Legislature.
References:
Sun S. (2021). Developing a Comprehensive and Coherent Shape Compactness Metric for Gerrymandering. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 111(1), 175-195. doi:10.1080/24694452.2020.1760779