Chase Cunningham, Honorable Mention, Youth-Central

Chase met the goals of compactness and equal population and drew one of the cleanest maps we've ever seen. One of us noted that Chase’s map is the only one he’s ever seen that looks as if it was laid out in a grid (something people often suggest but an idea that frequently creates skewed districts). Yet Chase took that route to a fair result. Even more remarkable, Chase only has 44 county splits in his map and manages to follow county lines to a great degree, creating a map that might “make sense” to the people in them.

Personal statement

When creating my map, the goal was to keep the districts as compact as possible and maintain the target population. The thought process behind keeping the districts compact was to keep areas with similar viewpoints together. That way, these areas with similar views have a chance at representation in Congress.

The equal populations mean that everyone's vote in our state has the same effect on the election of representatives and no one district has less effect on who represents our state in Congress.. Contiguity is also part of keeping the districts compact so it was a key factor used in my map. I didn't want to have any lost strings leading from one end of the district to the other so those were not present. These have no place in most maps, as they result in gerrymandering.