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

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

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…
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Supreme Court Schedules November Oral Argument in Undocumented Immigrant Apportionment Case

On Friday, the Supreme Court announced it would expedite an appeal by the Trump administration after a lower district court halted the administration’s plan to exclude people who are in the country illegally from the official apportionment count numbers used in allocating seats in the House of Representatives. Read a synopsis below. Oral arguments are scheduled for November 30, just one month before the statutory deadline for delivering the apportionment numbers to the president.It is not clear if the Census Bureau will be able to meet the December 31 deadline for delivering apportionment numbers, nor is it clear how it…
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Supreme Court Stays Lower Court Restraining Order, Allows Census Counting to End Early

On Sept. 24th the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction that enjoined the U.S. Census Bureau from ending its counting operations on September 30, extending the time to Oct 31. The Supreme Court issued a stay of this order last Tuesday allowing for census counting to end on Oct. 15. The order included a lone dissent from Justice Sotomayer noting " the government has not satisfied its “especially heavy burden to justify a stay pending appeal of the lower court’s injunction." Read coverage on CNN, NYT, CNBC, and Politico.
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Federal Judge Reprimands Census Bureau for Violating  its Restraining Order

Federal Judge Reprimands Census Bureau for Violating its Restraining Order

On Sept. 24th the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction that enjoins the U.S. Census Bureau from ending its counting operations on September 30, extending the time to Oct 31. On the afternoon of Sept. 28th, despite that court order, the Census Bureau tweeted (see below) that it would be ending field operations on Oct. 5th. Chaos ensued. In a new order issued by the district court on Oct 1, the court clarifies its original order and reprimands administration officials for " further undermining trust in the Bureau and its partners, sowing more…
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Federal Judge Orders Census Count to Continue Through Oct 31

A U.S. District Judge in the Northern District of California has issued a preliminary injunction that enjoins the U.S. Census Bureau from ending its counting operations on September 30. The order explains that the coalition of plaintiffs - headed by the National Urban League - are likely to succeed in the lawsuit and that shortening the timeframes for data collection and processing by half, necessitate the preliminary injunction. The administration is expected to appeal. Read the order here. While the Census Bureau had originally requested Congress to extend the statutory deadlines for apportionment data delivery to the President and redistricting…
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Restraining Order Halting Census Wind-down Operation is Extended by Judge

On Thursday, a federal district court judge extended a temporary restraining order barring the Census Bureau from wrapping up its counting operations in order to deliver census results on its statutory time schedule. The plaintiffs in the case are asking the court to compel the Bureau to take more time to complete the nationwide count since it was delayed earlier this Spring due to Covid-19. Listen below to NPR's quick update on how and why this happened. NPR Morning Edition - Court Order Keeps Census In Limbo As Counting End Date Looms 9-17-20 In March, the Bureau had requested an…
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A Look at the New Redistricting Process in New York

A Look at the New Redistricting Process in New York

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…
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Video: California Commission Holds First Meeting. Discusses Census Delays and Accuracy

Video: California Commission Holds First Meeting. Discusses Census Delays and Accuracy

The 2020 California Citizens Redistricting Commission has recently formed and sworn in all 14 of its members. Below is a clip from the first full meeting on August 26th. The entire virtual meeting is over five hours long with mostly procedural issues discussed in the first several hours. The clip below is the final 90 minutes, in which commission members were briefed on possible census delays, and a recent court decision extending the commission's deadlines for maps. Members also discussed whether to compose an amicus brief or letter of support in a recent lawsuit against the Census Bureau's plan to…
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What Does Differential Privacy in Census Data Mean for the Task of Redistricting?

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

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…
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Video: Gerrymandering and Reform Explained in 13 Minutes

Video: Gerrymandering and Reform Explained in 13 Minutes

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
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