Consider Tic-Tac-Toe Town, a city of 25 people that elects a
five-member City Council.  There are 9 people of the X political
viewpoint and 16 people of the O political viewpoint.  Under their
current at-large system, only O's are elected, and since that's not
fair, they decide to draw districts.  Since the O's constitute 64% of
the town, and the X's 36%, they decide that fair districts should give
the O's a majority on the council but should also give X's two seats
(40%).

This is how the X and O's are distributed in Tic-Tac-Toe Town:

	+-----------------+
	|X   O   X   O   X|
	|                 |
	|O   O   O   O   O|
	|                 |
	|X   O   X   O   X|
	|                 |
	|O   O   O   O   O|
	|                 |
	|X   O   X   O   X|
	+-----------------+

The City Council appoints an independent redistricting commission to
develop a plan, since they don't want any gerrymandering to unduly
favor one side or the other.

The first plan the commission develops (Plan A) has nice straight lines
and looks like this:

Plan A:
	+-----------------+
	|X   O   X   O   X|
	+-----------------+
	|O   O   O   O   O|
	+-----------------+
	|X   O   X   O   X|
	+-----------------+
	|O   O   O   O   O|
	+-----------------+
	|X   O   X   O   X|
	+-----------------+

Number of Districts that will elect an X: 3
Number of Districts that will elect an O: 2

"Wait", the O's cry.  "We're the majority in the city, we should have a
majority on the council!"  The commission (and even the X's) agree, so
the next plan, which also has nice straight lines, looks like this:

Plan B:
	+--+---+---+---+--+
	|X | O | X | O | X|
	|  |   |   |   |  |
	|O | O | O | O | O|
	|  |   |   |   |  |
	|X | O | X | O | X|
	|  |   |   |   |  |
	|O | O | O | O | O|
	|  |   |   |   |  |
	|X | O | X | O | X|
	+--+---+---+---+--+

Number of Districts that will elect an X: 3
Number of Districts that will elect an O: 2

"This is no better than Plan A", say all the commission members, so
they go back to the drawing board.  They decide that not all of the
lines can be straight, but they can at least make most of the districts
similar in shape, so they come up with this:

Plan C:
	+----------+------+
	|X   O   X | O   X|
	|      +---+      |
	|O   O | O | O   O|
	+--+---+   +---+  |
	|X | O   X   O | X|
	|  +---+   +---+--+
	|O   O | O | O   O|
	|      +---+      |
	|X   O | X   O   X|
	+------+----------+

Number of Districts that will elect an X: 0
Number of Districts that will elect an O: 5

"Unfair", cry the X's.  "We have no representation!  This is no better
than the current city-wide at-large election!"

At this point the commission members throw up their hands in
frustration.  They decide to hire you, as an independent, non-partisan,
member of the League of Women Voters, to be their consultant and to
draft a plan that will give the O's three seats on the council and the
X's two seats.

You can do this.  It is possible.  But as you draw those lines, consider
this:  You will be deciding which X voters will live in an X district
(and thus have a representative who will represent their views), and which
X voters will live in an O district (and thus have a representative who
does not represent their views).  You will be deciding similarly
for the O voters.  You get to decide the character of each voter's
representation long before the voters go to the polls to ratify your
decision -- I mean, to elect their representatives.

What will you do?

Take your time, for you want your result to reflect well on the
League.

Besides, they're paying you by the hour. :-)

For more information on redistricting, I suggest a visit to the Center
for Voting and Democracy redistricting web page at
http://fairvote.org/redistricting/index.html
where, among other things, you'll find an opportunity to play
Redistricting Roulette!


(One of many wrong answers:

	+-----------------+
	|X   O   X   O   X|
	+------+-------+--+
	|O   O | O   O | O|
	|      |   +---+  |
	|X   O | X | O   X|
	|  +---+   |      |
	|O | O   O | O   O|
	+--+-------+------+
	|X   O   X   O   X|
	+-----------------+

(Right answer: Use PR!)