Gerrymandering and Arlington's Congressional District: Where Does It Stack Up?

By BROOKLYN LOWERY (Patch Staff)

ARLINGTON, MA - Eastern Massachusetts’ Congressional districts might be some of the most highly gerrymandered in the country.

Specifically, the 7th Congressional district, which includes Somerville as well as portions of Cambridge and Boston among other cities, scored a 92.81 on a scale of 0-100, with higher numbers representing districts likely to be the most-gerrymandered. The 8th Congressional District came in close by with a score of 86.37 on the Gerrymandering Index.

The 5th Congressional district, of which Arlington is a part, scored a 78.37, putting it at the state average score of 78.37.

These data come from a 2014 Washington Post article in which Christopher Ingraham looked at the compactness -- “a measure of how irregular [a district’s] shape is, as determined by the ratio of the area of the district to the area of a circle with the same perimeter” -- of districts across the country to determine which of the country’s Congressional districts were likely the “most-gerrymandered” for the 113th Congress.

Massachusetts’ districts were redrawn after the 2010 Census and the new maps went into effect prior to the election of the 113th Congress.

According to Ingraham, “Districts that follow a generally regular shape tend to be compact, while those that have a lot of squiggles and offshoots and tentacle-looking protuberances tend to score poorly on this measure.”

Confused? Here’s the deal:

Take 24 inches of yarn and make a circle with it. Now tightly pack as many Gummi Bears as possible inside that circle to represent the area inside the circle.

Next, take that same 24-inch piece of yarn and make a funky shape with it -- go crazy with the tiny offshoots and weird divots and bump-outs. Try to fit all your circle Gummi Bears inside your new shape.

There are some mathematical calculations that would then follow, but the bottom line is that you generally can’t fit as many Gummi Bears inside an irregular shape because its area is usually less than the area of a regular shape.

Overall, North Carolina and Maryland were “essentially tied for the honor of most-gerrymandered state.” Nationally, the average score on the gerrymandering index was about 88, according to Ingraham. That means that Massachusetts -- with its average score of about 78 -- is likely less gerrymandered than the country on a whole.

Editor’s note: Jonathan Lowery contributed to this article.

Photo: Congressional district map from MALegislature.gov.