Automated Voting District Generation Using Preexisting Geopolitical Boundaries
OwnerDavid W. Peterson, Claire Ellis Osgoodinventors
Life of this patent
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Abstract
To assist the task of redistricting a region, such as a state, the region is divided into one or more sets of “super districts” that exactly cover the region. Each super district comprises one or more contiguous counties or other preexisting geopolitical sub-divisions, and contains an integral multiple of the required district population, to within a predetermined tolerance. A plurality of such sets, or super district covers, may be created, such as via a computer program. The task of creating voting districts then becomes one of selecting a super district cover as a starting point, and then dividing the super districts containing a multiple of the required population into voting districts.
Claims20
A method of assisting the division of a geographic region into a predetermined number of contiguous, non-overlapping districts that completely cover the region, each district having the same population to within a predetermined tolerance, making maximum use of preexisting geopolitical boundaries, comprising automatically generating at least one super district cover comprising a set of contiguous, non-overlapping super districts that completely cover the region, each super district defined entirely by preexisting geopolitical boundaries and containing an integer multiple of the required district population to within the predetermined tolerance.
A computer readable medium including one or more computer programs operative to cause a computer to assist in the division of a region into a predetermined number of contiguous, non-overlapping districts that completely cover the region, each district having the same population to within a predetermined tolerance, making maximum use of preexisting geopolitical boundaries, the computer programs causing the computer to automatically generate at least one super district cover comprising a set of contiguous, non-overlapping super districts that completely cover the region, each super district defined entirely by preexisting geopolitical boundaries and containing an integer multiple of the required district population to within the predetermined tolerance.
The computer readable medium 19 wherein selecting super districts from the library to create at least one super district cover for the region comprises iteratively performing the steps of:
- for each size N of preexisting geopolitical sub-regions per super district:
- choosing a candidate super district randomly from among the not-yet-chosen super districts of size N;
- tentatively adding the candidate super district to the super district cover;
- determining whether the remaining region comprises a collection of super districts of any size;
- if so, adding the candidate super district to the cover and removing from the not-yet-chosen super districts of size N, all super districts having a preexisting geopolitical sub-region in common with the candidate super district, and if not, excluding the candidate super district from the cover;
- repeating for all super districts of size N;
- and
- incrementing N and repeating until the library is exhausted.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.