Abstract

Write a brief abstract about your research project.

If the project is a reproduction or replication study, include a declaration of the study type with a full reference to the original study. For example:

This study is a replication of:

citation to prior study

A graphical abstract of the study could also be included as an image here.

Study metadata

Study design

This is an original study based on literature on gerrymandering metrics.

It is an exploratory study to evaluate the usefulness of a new gerrymandering metric based on the convex hull and representativeness inside the convex hull compareed to the congressional district.

Materials and procedure

Computational environment

I plan on using sf tidyverse and tidycensus packages for my spatial analysis.

Data and variables

Precincts 2020

/Users/dermotmcmillan/Desktop/GitHub/OR-Gerymander-Alabama/data/metadata/precincts20.md

Decennial Census

We will use the ‘tidycensus’ package to gather census block data. First, query metadata for the pl public law data series.

We are interested in Racial gerrymandering so we will look at voting aged people who are Black or Afriican American.

## Reading layer `block_groups' from data source 
##   `/Users/dermotmcmillan/Desktop/GitHub/OR-Gerymander-Alabama/data/raw/public/block_groups.gpkg' 
##   using driver `GPKG'
## Simple feature collection with 3925 features and 83 fields (with 1 geometry empty)
## Geometry type: MULTIPOLYGON
## Dimension:     XY
## Bounding box:  xmin: -88.47323 ymin: 30.22333 xmax: -84.88908 ymax: 35.00803
## Geodetic CRS:  NAD83

Prior observations

At the time of this study pre-registration, the authors had no prior knowledge of the geography of the study region with regards to the spatial and political phenomena to be studied. This study is related to no prior studies by the authors

Bias and threats to validity

This study deals with the modifiable areal unit problem since it is looking at how changing the areal unit changes the political and social demographics in a region. Coastlines and other borders formed by natural features may generate very different compactness scores depending on the scale at which the perimeter is calculated and may lead to biased results in the convex hull and minimum bounding circle comparisons.

Data transformations

The following is a general workflow diagram for data transformations boxes represent transformations and circles represent outputs.

Workflow
Workflow

Analysis

Describe the methods of analysis that will directly test the hypotheses or provide results to answer the research questions. This section should explicitly define any spatial / statistical models and their parameters, including grouping criteria, weighting criteria, and significance thresholds. Also explain any follow-up analyses or validations.

Results

Describe how results are to be presented.

Discussion

Describe how the results are to be interpreted vis a vis each hypothesis or research question.

Integrity Statement

Include an integrity statement - The authors of this preregistration state that they completed this preregistration to the best of their knowledge and that no other preregistration exists pertaining to the same hypotheses and research. If a prior registration does exist, explain the rationale for revising the registration here.

Acknowledgements

This report is based upon the template for Reproducible and Replicable Research in Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences, DOI:[10.17605/OSF.IO/W29MQ](DOI:%5B10.17605/OSF.IO/W29MQ){.uri}

References