Ryan Buchko (Harry S. Truman H.S., Bucks County) - Honorable Mention, Eastern Youth

About Ryan: I always loved to participate in activities and try my hand at something I’ve never done before. I did this for fun and never expected to actually make it here, but I am here now. I am a junior attending Harry S Truman High school and am proud to be an award winner.

Judges' statement

Ryan participated with about 60 other students from multiple high schools in a DTL mapathon, and his effort stood out. Using a starter map, Ryan created districts that had one of the best population equivalence scores in the state. Not bad for an afternoon's work! 

Personal statement

I drew the lines on my map to try and balance out the population the best way possible. I believe that the "one person, one vote" constitutional principle should be more enforced when redistricting our state. This way the population being more equal would give people's votes a slight bit more of an impact  than what currently happens. If people's votes counted more than they do, more people would want to vote for what they think is better instead of being neutral about elections and the voting would be  fairer than it currently is.