IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v44y1998i8p1100-1114.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An Optimization Based Heuristic for Political Districting

Author

Listed:
  • Anuj Mehrotra

    (Department of Management Science, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida 33124-8237)

  • Ellis L. Johnson

    (School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332)

  • George L. Nemhauser

    (School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332)

Abstract

Redistricting, the redrawing of congressional district boundaries within the states, may occur every 10 years on the basis of the population census. Many redistricting plans are designed with partisan politics in mind, resulting in disputes and forcing judges to intervene. We address this problem from a nonpolitical viewpoint and present an optimization based heuristic incorporating universally agreed upon characteristics. We model the problem as a constrained graph partitioning problem and develop a specialized branch-and-price based solution methodology. We demonstrate the feasibility of our methodology by showing how to satisfy the one-person, one-vote principle with compact and contiguous districts for the state of South Carolina.

Suggested Citation

  • Anuj Mehrotra & Ellis L. Johnson & George L. Nemhauser, 1998. "An Optimization Based Heuristic for Political Districting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(8), pages 1100-1114, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:44:y:1998:i:8:p:1100-1114
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.44.8.1100
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.44.8.1100
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.44.8.1100?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. R. S. Garfinkel & G. L. Nemhauser, 1970. "Optimal Political Districting by Implicit Enumeration Techniques," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(8), pages 495-508, April.
    2. Anuj Mehrotra & Michael A. Trick, 1996. "A Column Generation Approach for Graph Coloring," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 8(4), pages 344-354, November.
    3. GARFINKEL, Robert S. & NEMHAUSER, Geroge L., 1970. "Optimal political districting by implicit enumeration techniques," LIDAM Reprints CORE 54, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John N. Hooker, 2002. "Logic, Optimization, and Constraint Programming," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 14(4), pages 295-321, November.
    2. Brian Lunday & Hanif Sherali & Kevin Lunday, 2012. "The coastal seaspace patrol sector design and allocation problem," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 483-514, November.
    3. Xin Tang & Ameur Soukhal & Vincent T’kindt, 2014. "Preprocessing for a map sectorization problem by means of mathematical programming," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 222(1), pages 551-569, November.
    4. James E. Stahl & Nan Kong & Steven M. Shechter & Andrew J. Schaefer & Mark S. Roberts, 2005. "A Methodological Framework for Optimally Reorganizing Liver Transplant Regions," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 25(1), pages 35-46, January.
    5. Baghersad, Milad & Emadikhiav, Mohsen & Huang, C. Derrick & Behara, Ravi S., 2023. "Modularity maximization to design contiguous policy zones for pandemic response," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 304(1), pages 99-112.
    6. Swamy, Rahul & King, Douglas M. & Ludden, Ian G. & Dobbs, Kiera W. & Jacobson, Sheldon H., 2024. "A practical optimization framework for political redistricting: A case study in Arizona," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    7. F Caro & T Shirabe & M Guignard & A Weintraub, 2004. "School redistricting: embedding GIS tools with integer programming," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 55(8), pages 836-849, August.
    8. Balázs Fleiner & Balázs Nagy & Attila Tasnádi, 2017. "Optimal partisan districting on planar geographies," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 25(4), pages 879-888, December.
    9. Edieal J. Pinker, 2013. "Introduction to the OR Forum Article: “Blotto Politics”," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 61(3), pages 531-531, June.
    10. Juan Carlos Duque & Raúl Ramos & Jordi Suriñach, 2007. "Supervised Regionalization Methods: A Survey," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 30(3), pages 195-220, July.
    11. Federica Ricca & Andrea Scozzari & Bruno Simeone, 2013. "Political Districting: from classical models to recent approaches," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 204(1), pages 271-299, April.
    12. Sommer Gentry & Eric Chow & Allan Massie & Dorry Segev, 2015. "Gerrymandering for Justice: Redistricting U.S. Liver Allocation," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 45(5), pages 462-480, October.
    13. Tammy Drezner & Zvi Drezner, 2011. "A note on equity across groups in facility location," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(7), pages 705-711, October.
    14. R. Church & J. C. Duque & D. E. Restrepo, 2020. "The p-Innovation ecosystems model," Papers 2008.05885, arXiv.org.
    15. Bozkaya, Burcin & Erkut, Erhan & Laporte, Gilbert, 2003. "A tabu search heuristic and adaptive memory procedure for political districting," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 12-26, January.
    16. Mohamed Haouari & Farah Zeghal Mansour & Hanif D. Sherali, 2019. "A New Compact Formulation for the Daily Crew Pairing Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(3), pages 811-828, May.
    17. Djordje Dugošija & Aleksandar Savić & Zoran Maksimović, 2020. "A new integer linear programming formulation for the problem of political districting," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 288(1), pages 247-263, May.
    18. Fernando Tavares-Pereira & José Figueira & Vincent Mousseau & Bernard Roy, 2007. "Multiple criteria districting problems," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 154(1), pages 69-92, October.
    19. George Nemhauser, 2007. "Hooked on IP," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 149(1), pages 157-161, February.
    20. Benadè, Gerdus & Ho-Nguyen, Nam & Hooker, J.N., 2022. "Political districting without geography," Operations Research Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 9(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:44:y:1998:i:8:p:1100-1114. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.