Team 'Wild Card,' Honorable Mention, Higher Ed-West

About Jeffrey Elms: I am a 19 year old college student that attended the Community College of Allegheny County for my freshman year. I plan to transfer to Kent State University in fall of 2019 and major in finance and accounting. I'm interested in politics and our country's government so redrawing the lines of my state was incredibly important to me. I wasn't alone in this effort; I was accompanied by my classmates Ian Bookser, Will White, John Bender, Logan Pilardi, Brian Kress, and Steven Maskiewicz (none pictured.)

Endorsements: 1

Personal statement

Our group’s interest in redrawing the state lines derived from what we learned about the issue of PA's gerrymandering in our American Government class. For our map, we primarily focused on population equivalence, trying to get as close to an equal amount of residents as we could for all 17 districts. We received positive input from both our professor and some of the representatives from Draw the Lines. Because of this positive input we continued to focus on equal population and completed the map as so. One of the major challenges we faced in creating the map was just getting familiar with the map creating program but once we did, it was easy to finish.