Alaska State Supreme Court Set to Decide if Interim Legislative Map Will Remain in Effect for the Decade

Alaska State Supreme Court Set to Decide if Interim Legislative Map Will Remain in Effect for the Decade

By EditorApr 24, 2023
On Friday, the Alaska Supreme Court issued its opinion detailing its March 2022 ruling that Alaska's legislative (a.k.a. Proclamation) Map violated the state's equal protection clause due to partisan gerrymandering. The opinion is not a surprise since the court made this conclusion clear in a March 25 2022 order. What is newsworthy, is that the court asked the Alaska Redistricting Board to make a case for restarting the redistricting process over to establish a final map for the rest of the decade. After two failed attempts by the Redistricting Board to adopt a legislative map, a third map was used…
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Alaska Redistricting Board Adopts Proposed Redistricting Plans

Alaska Redistricting Board Adopts Proposed Redistricting Plans

By EditorSep 10, 2021
Press Release: Sept. 9 2021 For Immediate Release: September 9, 2021 ANCHORAGE – Today the Alaska Redistricting Board adopted two proposed redistricting plansin accordance with Alaska Constitution Article VI Section 10, which requires adoption of at leastone proposed plan within thirty days after the official reporting of the decennial census of theUnited States. The census data was received on August 12, 2021.“We have fulfilled our constitutional obligation and I’m pleased to begin the process of hearingfrom the public over the next 60 days as we develop our final plan,” said Board Member NicoleBorromeo. The Board will be meeting on Friday,…
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16 States Join in Alabama’s Challenge to the Census Bureau’s Data Privacy Program

By EditorApr 14, 2021
On Monday, 16 states joined Alabama in deriding the U.S. Census Bureau's newly adapted data privacy policy (aka differential privacy) which uses statistical algorithms to distort raw census data before it is released to states and the public. The states who jointly filed as amici in Alabama's lawsuit against the Bureau are Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, and Utah. The amicus brief filed on behalf of these states lists three "major harms" caused by differential privacy. 1) local redistricting cannot be conducted with any reasonable accuracy; 2)…
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Study: Census Bureau’s Differential Privacy Disclosure Avoidance System Produces Concerning Results for Local Jurisdictions

Study: Census Bureau’s Differential Privacy Disclosure Avoidance System Produces Concerning Results for Local Jurisdictions

By EditorMar 31, 2021
Recent research into the effect of differential privacy (DP) on Alaska's census data show concerning results, especially for small area geographies such as townships, municipalities and other local jurisdictions. The authors of the study, a summary of which is posted in the blog for the Population Association of America, warn that local redistricting and other activities connected to census data could be substantially impacted by the Census Bureau's application of differential privacy on raw census data. The authors of the study, David Swanson, Professor Emeritus, Sociology at the University of California - Riverside, T.M. Bryan of Bryan Demographic Research, Richmond,…
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