Redistricting Roulette

Welcome to "Redistricting Roulette"! Nearly every political jurisdiction in the nation will adjust its legislative district lines in 2001-2002 based on new information provided by the U.S. Census. Political insiders know that the way legislative lines are drawn has a major impact on who wins and who loses. Unfortunately, the public often is not aware of this impact and plays little role in redistricting.

In Redistricting Roulette, imagine a town of 125 voters, with 65 "circle" voters and 60 "square" voters. (Yes, voters cannot be so easily pegged in real life, but redistricting experts know that voters often are more predictable than many assume). One might expect a fair districting plan to produce three districts with a majority of circle voters and two districts with a majority of square voters. But a spin of the gerrymandering wheel can result in dramatic variations of that expectation..

Try your hand at "Redistricting Roulette". To explore the impact of five alternative districting plans, move your mouse over one of the five buttons and see which side comes out the winner and the loser. And don't let redistricting be left to chance in your town, your county and your state. 

To have a copy of Redistricting Roulette on your home computer, you can download Redistricting Roulette.  After downloading put the file into a folder of your choice and then double-click the file.  Wheel.exe will self extract and then you can run index.html from the browser on your computer.