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.…

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…

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…