The 2030 LUCA Schedule: Key Dates for Tribal, State, and Local Governments

The 2030 LUCA Schedule: Key Dates for Tribal, State, and Local Governments

By EditorJul 21, 20260 Comments
The Census Bureau has published a schedule for the 2030 Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA), the process by which tribal, state, and local governments review and comment on the Census Address List for their jurisdictions before the 2030 Census. The Bureau relies on a complete and accurate address list to reach every living quarter and its associated population for inclusion in the decennial census, and LUCA is the mechanism that brings local review into that list. A review begins with a government comparing the Census Bureau's Address Count Listing File for its area (also called a block count list),…
Census Data and Geography, Local Redistricting, ,
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The BBSP Deadline Passed. Now What? A Guide for Local Officials

The BBSP Deadline Passed. Now What? A Guide for Local Officials

By EditorJul 18, 20260 Comments
The Block Boundary Suggestion Project (BBSP) exists so that states can identify non-standard features often used as electoral boundaries (power lines, property lines, or streams) that could serve alongside more traditional features (such as street centerlines) as census tabulation block boundaries. States, through their official liaisons, may also identify features that are not desirable as block boundaries. In addition, legal boundaries reviewed in coordination with the annual Boundary and Annexation Survey also become census tabulation block boundaries. Where no suggestions are submitted, local precinct boundaries following features the Bureau does not already carry are unlikely to appear as census block…
DATA and TECHNOLOGY, Local Redistricting, , ,
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The Boundary Annexation Survey (BAS) Submission Checklist for Local Governments

The Boundary Annexation Survey (BAS) Submission Checklist for Local Governments

By EditorJul 14, 20260 Comments
The Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS) is the Census Bureau's annual check-in with local government on where its legal boundaries actually are. Each year the Bureau contacts federally recognized American Indian areas, counties and county equivalents, incorporated places, and minor civil divisions, asking each to confirm that the Bureau has the correct boundary, name, and status for that government. The public and data users rely on the annual BAS boundaries as the official federal representation of boundaries for legal governments. The Census Bureau maintains this data in its MAF/TIGER System and publishes the results through the annual TIGER/Line release. For…
DATA and TECHNOLOGY, Local Redistricting, , ,
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A Prep Checklist for Election Offices Before the Census Bureau’s 2028 Voting District Project Begins

A Prep Checklist for Election Offices Before the Census Bureau’s 2028 Voting District Project Begins

By EditorJul 10, 20260 Comments
The U.S. Census Bureau's Voting District Project (VTDP) will give state liaisons the opportunity to submit and verify their voting districts, the Bureau's generic term for precincts, election districts, wards, and similar areas, for inclusion in the 2030 Census Redistricting Data products. Program submissions come only from the official state liaison, so local election and GIS offices take part by being designated as technical liaisons or by routing their data through the liaison. The quality of a state's submission depends on groundwork done locally, and the most useful steps can be taken well before the cycle opens in early 2028.…
Local Redistricting, ,
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Callais Comes to County Government: Federal Judge Applies New VRA Standard to Mississippi Local Map

Callais Comes to County Government: Federal Judge Applies New VRA Standard to Mississippi Local Map

By EditorJun 25, 2026
A federal judge in Mississippi ruled on June 24 that DeSoto County's 2022 electoral map does not violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, dismissing a challenge brought by the DeSoto County NAACP, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, and two Black voters who alleged the map dilutes Black voting power across 25 local offices, including the Board of Supervisors, Board of Education, Election Commission, justice court judges, and constables. The U.S. District Court, applying the Supreme Court's April 29 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, found the plaintiffs failed all three preconditions of the Gingles test - the threshold legal standard…
Local Redistricting, Mississippi, , ,
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Official vs. Technical Liaisons: Who Can Actually Submit in the Voting District Project

Official vs. Technical Liaisons: Who Can Actually Submit in the Voting District Project

By EditorJun 24, 2026
The Census Bureau runs the Redistricting Data Program through a single official nonpartisan liaison in each state, jointly identified by the governor and the legislative leaders responsible for redistricting. That liaison manages the geographic updates submitted in each phase and reviews and approves them before the Bureau loads them into its MAF/TIGER database. Program submissions are accepted only from the official liaison, but that does not exclude local expertise from the process. The official liaison may designate technical liaisons - for example, county GIS staff - who can perform geographic updates and submit completed work to the Census Bureau on…
Local Redistricting, ,
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Are your Precincts “Actual” or “Pseudo”? What Local Officials Should Know about the Census Bureau’s Voting District Program

Are your Precincts “Actual” or “Pseudo”? What Local Officials Should Know about the Census Bureau’s Voting District Program

By EditorJun 19, 2026
The Census Bureau tabulates population by census geography ( ie., census blocks, tracts, counties), not by the precincts and wards that election offices actually run. Without a way to bridge that gap, states would receive decennial population counts that could not be readily matched to their own election geography. The Voting District Project (VTDP) is that bridge: once each decade, as Phase 2 of the Redistricting Data Program, the Census Bureau invites each state to submit its voting districts - its generic term for precincts, election districts, and wards - so that population data can be tabulated for those areas…
Local Redistricting, ,
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BBSP vs. BAS: Two Census Programs, Two Crucial Jobs

BBSP vs. BAS: Two Census Programs, Two Crucial Jobs

By EditorJun 04, 2026
The Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS) and the Block Boundary Suggestion Project (BBSP) are often conflated; both involve local geography and the Census Bureau, but they do different jobs. BAS is the Bureau's annual survey to keep the legal boundaries and names of governments current, such as city limits, county lines, township boundaries, and tribal areas. BBSP is a once-a-decade phase of the Redistricting Data Program in which a state suggests which features the Bureau should use as statistical census tabulation block (census block) boundaries. The other differences follow from that split. BAS runs every year, and each eligible government…
DATA and TECHNOLOGY, Local Redistricting, , , ,
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Maryland Enacts State Voting Rights Act, with Local Elections at the Center

Maryland Enacts State Voting Rights Act, with Local Elections at the Center

By EditorMay 25, 2026
Governor Wes Moore signed the Voting Rights Act of 2026 for Counties and Municipal Corporations (SB 255) into law on April 28, 2026, making Maryland the ninth state in the country to enact its own voting rights protections. The law directly targets local government electoral systems, prohibiting any county or municipal body from using an election method that dilutes or impairs a protected class's ability to elect candidates of their choice. To enforce the new standard, the Maryland Attorney General is authorized to investigate and sue local jurisdictions found to be operating such systems, while individual voters also gain a…
Local Redistricting, Maryland,
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From 1990 to 2030: A Short History of the Census Block-Boundary Suggestion Project

From 1990 to 2030: A Short History of the Census Block-Boundary Suggestion Project

By EditorMay 22, 2026
The Block Boundary Suggestion Project (BBSP) is now in its fourth decade. It began as part of the Census Bureau's first nationwide Redistricting Data Program for the 1990 Census, following a 1984 pilot test that yielded positive results, which led to its full implementation. While census blocks were first used in 1940, only for cities of 50,000 or more inhabitants and other governments that contracted for the work, they were first used nationwide in 1990. Along with the nationwide census block-numbering system, which gave states the small-area geography they needed to meet Voting Rights Act obligations and minimal-population-deviation districting standards, BBSP helped move redistricting…
DATA and TECHNOLOGY, Local Redistricting, , ,
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