Date of Award
8-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Mathematical Sciences
Committee Chair/Advisor
Matthew Saltzman
Committee Member
Mary E. Kurz
Committee Member
William Bridges
Committee Member
Neil Calkin
Abstract
Political redistricting has remained a hot-button issue in the United States for several decades. Every ten years, most states need to redraw their districts to account for changing populations. Sometimes, these district plans can be drawn with the malevolent intention of aiding one political party over another. This dissertation summarizes four distinct methods of drawing these districts using computer algorithms while keeping several objectives in mind. We test these approaches on the case study state of South Carolina, since it provides a sufficiently challenging problem for us to test various algorithms. We find that many of these approaches improve upon the current South Carolina district map, and many of the algorithms improve upon or remain competitive with other redistricting procedures available in the literature.
Recommended Citation
Splitter, Blake, "Optimization Strategies for Political Redistricting" (2024). All Dissertations. 3727.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/3727
Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5141-0139