Bloomington’s litigation over a 2017 law that stopped its effort to annex some land into the city is grinding its way towards a hearing in front of the Indiana Supreme Court.

Bloomington won a ruling from a lower court in April that found the law was unconstitutional on two grounds.

One of the State of Indiana’s allegations is that Bloomington “gerrymandered” the areas it chose for its planned annexation. For this edition of the Beacon’s Math Journal let’s not dive into the specifics of the parcels Bloomington planned to annex.

Instead, let’s take an abstract look at a geometric requirement that the state statute imposes on the possible shapes of annexed territory. The statute puts some limits on how much the shape of an annexed area can be gerrymandered.

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