May 06, 2021 To help ensure voting districts are equitably redrawn after the 2020 census, researchers have developed an open-source tool that can help congressional redistricting observers spot unusual configurations. GerryChain uses mathematical and computational models to generate a representative collection of maps that would meet legal voting rules and priorities for new districts. It can be used as a baseline for comparison in the evaluation of newly proposed plans and can indicate outlier configurations that may be the result of partisan goals. The software was first developed by a team led by Daryl DeFord, an assistant mathematics professor at Washington State University (WSU), as a part of the 2018 Voting Rights Data Institute. In 2018, GerryChain was used in Virginia to analyze maps proposed to remedy House of Delegates districts that a federal court ruled were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.