FEATURES – Page 3

What’s New About Redistricting in 2020? – It’s Going To Start Late

By EditorFeb 11, 2021

Really late. The pre-Covid decades were very much predictable in terms of census data releases. The apportionment data, pursuant to statute, would be delivered to the President and Congress by Dec. 31, and redistricting was delivered to the states on a rolling basis throughout March. States with early primaries in that year would get their data first. By April 1 every state would have all of the data needed to begin the redistricting process. This decade, the census data timeline has been delayed and is riddled with uncertainty. The apportionment data was promised by the Census Bureau in January, then…

FEATURES, Redistricting, Redistricting Functions, Redistricting Prepapportionment, census, census 2020, national, policyindepth, U.S. Census Bureau

Watch: The New Virginia Redistricting Commission Conducts its First Full Meeting

By EditorJan 31, 2021

The brand new 2021 Virginia Redistricting Commission is up and running. This is new for the state, so all eyes will be on the 16-member commission as redistricting looms. You can watch the meetings here on RedistrictingOnline. Watch commission meetings via Redistrictingonline's Youtube playlist or the Virginia state info page to keep up to date on the commission and redistricting in Virginia in general. The commission is made up of eight citizen members and eight members of the state General Assembly. The commission held its first meeting as a full commission on January 21. There will lots for the commissioners…

FEATURES, LATEST, POLICY and PRACTICE, Redistricting, Redistricting Commissions, VIDEOcommission, meetings, policyindepth, redistricting, STATENEWS, States, Virginia

Panel Discussion: What Are “Communities of Interest” and How Will They Affect Redistricting in Michigan?

By EditorOct 24, 2020

For a discussion on how Michigan has approached the principle of communities of interest and what this portends for the new redistricting commission, watch panelists Jocelyn Benson, Connie Malloy, Chris Lamar, Christopher Thomas, & moderator Nancy Wang discuss Michigan's approach to redistricting via an Independent Citizens Commission. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2kiEVY2Z4w&feature=emb_logo

FEATURES, NEWS, POLICY and PRACTICE, Redistricting, Redistricting CriteriaAnalysis, commission, Michigan, policyindepth

Analysis: Do Redistricting Maps with Deviations Under 10% Violate the Equal Population Rule? Sometimes.

By EditorOct 23, 2020

Most legal challenges to redistricting maps based on population deviation center around deviations that are too large. However, there are a handful of cases in which a court has found a map with minimal deviations (under 10%) to be unconstitutional. What is minimal? The equal population or “one-person, one-vote standard requires general population equality between districts, but there is no precise number or percentage that defines constitutionality. Instead, the Supreme Court interprets this constitutional requirement for congressional districts to mean “strict equality,” and for legislative and other local maps, districts need only to be “substantially equal.” In practice, a clear…

Equal Protection, FEATURES, Redistricting Equal PopulationAnalysis, equal population, lawindepth, legal, lpequalpro, one person one vote

A Look at the New Redistricting Process in New York

By Michelle DavisSep 15, 2020

2021 will be the first time New York conducts redistricting under a new regime. In 2014, as part of a political compromise between the legislature and governor, a constitutional amendment was proposed and eventually approved by voters that establish a redistricting advisory commission, new redistricting criteria, and other rules to increase fairness and participation in the redistricting process. Here is a summary of the process. Redistricting Commission: The amendment creates a 10-member commission, eight of whom are chosen by legislative leaders (speaker, senate president and the minority leaders in each house). Four members are chosen from the majority party and…

FEATURES, Official Redistricting Entities, Redistricting, Redistricting Commissionscommission, new york, policyindepth, reform, STATENEWS, States

What Does Differential Privacy in Census Data Mean for the Task of Redistricting?

By Michelle DavisSep 08, 2020

The law requires that any identifying information you give the Census Bureau be kept confidential for 75 yrs, but simply removing your information from what is published is no longer enough. Big data and powerful computing technology now allow almost anyone to "reconstruct" the seemingly anonymized information. That means it is increasingly possible to identify who you are, where you live, and other information from the census results. Here's how the Census Bureau plans to combat that. New for the 2020 census, the U.S. Census Bureau will be using a process called differential privacy to inject "statistical noise" into the…

Census Data and Geography, FEATURES, Redistricting, Redistricting PrepAnalysis, census, census 2020, dataindepth, differential privacy, U.S. Census Bureau

Video: Gerrymandering and Reform Explained in 13 Minutes

By Michelle DavisSep 01, 2020

Need a quick primer on gerrymandering and reform? This just-released video produced by CNBC reviews the entire redistricting landscape regarding gerrymandering and reform efforts over the past two decades. All in just 13 minutes. While it makes the case for reform, it does a swell job at describing many topics. Watch it for a succinct description and review of various hot button issues in redistricting including partisan gerrymandering, redistricting commissions, the Voting Rights Act, prison gerrymandering, census data and citizenship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s6erd5MbEY&feature=youtu.be

FEATURES, LATEST, Race in Redistricting, Redistricting, Redistricting Gerrymanders, Redistricting Race Rules, REFORM, VIDEOBASICS, gerrymandering, prisoner reallocation, prisoners, reform

Understanding the 2020 Census Disclosure Avoidance Policy. A.K.A. “Differential Privacy”

By Michelle DavisSep 01, 2020

The Census Bureau is mandated by the U.S. constitution to complete a count of the population every decade. Few realize however, that Title 13, Sec. 9 of the U.S. Code also requires the Bureau to "keep personally identifiable information confidential for 72 years." With the growth of Big Data, this privacy mandate has become a much more complicated task, thanks to "database reconstruction," a method of partially reconstructing a private dataset from public aggregate information. Consider the well-known example below of how one data scientist obtained former Governor William Weld's medical history from aggregate data released to the Massachusetts Group…

Census Data and Geography, FEATURES, Redistricting, Redistricting Prep, VIDEOcensus, census 2020, dataindepth, differential privacy, U.S. Census Bureau

Second State Invalidates Redistricting Map Based on Common State Constitutional Provision

By Michelle DavisSep 05, 2019

September 5, 2019 “the Free Elections Clause of the North Carolina Constitution guarantees that all elections must be conducted freely and honestly to ascertain, fairly and truthfully, the will of the People and that this is a fundamental right of North Carolina citizens, a compelling governmental interest, and a cornerstone of our democratic form of government.” These are the words of the three-judge panel in North Carolina's state trial court. Following Pennsylvania's lead in League of Women Voters of Pa. v. Pennsylvania, which invalidated that state's congressional map - The North Carolina court gave legislative leaders until September 17th to…

FEATURES, LAW, NEWS, Partisan Gerrymandering, POLICY and PRACTICE, Redistricting Gerrymanders, State Laws, Uncategorizedfree and fair clause, legal, North Carolina, northcarolina, partisan gerrymandering, States

Do Independent Redistricting Commissions Produce Neutral Maps?

By Michelle DavisJul 02, 2019

After the Supreme Court's exit from the partisan gerrymandering business last week, the focus will likely turn to the states. The call for independent redistricting commissions will be key to any reform strategy. A group of government and political science professors provided some insight into the question of whether these commissions actually work to produce nonpartisan, or "less" partisan maps. Their preliminary evidence suggests that it does. "The nonpartisan-drawn maps tended to be more symmetrical on average after redistricting. In other words, they tended to treat both parties similarly. This suggests that nonpartisan bodies have successfully neutralized partisan bias, as…

FEATURES, Redistricting Gerrymanders, REFORMAnalysis, commission, Independent Redistricting Commission, partisan symmetry, policyindepth, redistricting