Pack and Crack: The Gerrymandering Pencil Puzzle
To win the election, redistrict voters by drawing boundaries to benefit your party. Each map has 81 voters in a 9 by 9 grid. Your voters are represented by stars and your opponent’s voters are represented by dots.
Use a pencil to draw boundaries for voting blocks. You must divide the map in the following ways:
- Create exactly 9 voting blocks.
- Each voting block must have exactly 9 voters, consisting of stars and/or dots.
- Have at least 5 stars in at least 5 voting blocks to win the election.
Erase and redraw voting block boundaries until you solve a map. Each one may have multiple solutions. Maps will becoming increasingly harder to pack and crack!
About Gerrymandering
Gerrymandering is the practice of changing voting district boundaries to favor one political party. Even if one party makes up one-third of a population, districts can be drawn so the group with fewer voters win. Packing and cracking are two techniques towards that goal.
Packing is putting as many of your opponents into one district so votes are wasted after a majority if met.
Cracking is dividing up a district that has more of your voters in a district that is needed to win, so your voters are more efficiently used.