There is a report today in Science magazine about new methods to maximise competiveness in electoral areas. The link is below, but you may need to sign in, so I quoted the interesting bits. The idea is to use an objective way to divide up constituencies, instead of letting politicians do it. (Note they are talking about the US '10 elections.)

Science/AAAS | Science Magazine: Sign In

With the 2010 census looming, U.S. politicians and their legal teams are gearing up for another round of wrangling over the spoils of redistricting: the process of deciding which voters get to reelect which members of the House of Representatives and other legislative bodies. Parties in power like to carve up voters to their own advantage, a practice known as gerrymandering. Some reformers, however, hope to limit the mischief--and are turning to mathematics for tools to do so.
...
In his own proposal, Hirsch took the idea of thresholds and added a dose of high-octane competition. Rival factions--or anyone else interested in entering the fray--would be able to counter one another's maps, as long as each new submission improved on at least one of three criteria and matched the other two. The goals of the three criteria are to minimize the number of counties cut up by district lines, equalize as much as possible the number of districts leaning toward each of the two major parties, and maximize the number of "competitive" districts, in which neither major-party candidate in a recent statewide contest would have won by more than 7% of the vote.