Project Description
Background
Gerrymandering refers to the manipulation of the boundaries that make up electoral districts with the intent of creating undue advantage for a specific party/group. Gerrymandering can lead to a scenario in which a majority of districts elect representatives from a certain party even though a majority of voters favor the other party.
In March 1812, the Boston Gazette ran a political cartoon drawn by Gilbert Stuart depicting “a new species of monster”: “The Gerry-mander.” The forked-tongue creature was shaped like a contorted Massachusetts voting district that the state’s Jeffersonian Republicans had drawn to benefit their own party. Stuart thought the shape of the district looked like a salamander, but his friend called it a “Gerry-mander” after Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, the person who approved rearranging district lines for political advantage. (source)
Your Task
In this project, you’ll use JavaScript graphics to create a game that visualizes how gerrymandering works! In the game, the user is given 25 squares, 15 green and 10 purple. These 25 squares will be used to create 5 districts, each with 5 squares. If a district has more green squares than purple squares (e.g. 3 green and 2 purple) then the district is considered a green district. Likewise, if a district has more purple squares than green (e.g. 4 purple and 1 green) then the district is considered purple.
The goal of the game is to figure out a way to create the districts so that purple wins. To do this, the user will click on each square to select it and add it to a district. Once 5 squares are selected, a district is complete and then the user starts over creating a new district.
