Personal statement
For me, electoral districts make the most sense if they are concentrated around one specific area and are equally represented. For this map, my primary goal was to create districts of equal size (population wise). My secondary goal was to keep these districts compact and continuous, so that no districts would have extremely strange shapes. While I tried to mostly follow county lines, it often became difficult because I wanted to make sure that the districts were of equal population. When I could, I tried to combine Republican and Democratic areas for more contested elections. However, this was not my main focus.
