Category Archives: redistricting

“Census experts puzzled by high rate of unanswered questions”

August 10, 2021, 4:22 amredistrictingDerek Muller

Associated Press: Census Bureau statisticians and outside experts are trying to unravel a mystery: Why were so many questions about households in the 2020 census left unanswered?Residents did not respond to a multitude of questions about sex, race, Hispanic… Continue reading

House elections are unnecessarily uncompetitive

August 9, 2021, 4:28 pmredistrictingNed Foley

This Washington Post column builds on a numerical comparison of 2020 House and Senate elections that the Election Law at Ohio State team has developed. In addition to the example of Georgia discussed in the column, it’s worth considering the… Continue reading

A plug for “All About Redistricting” as the census data will soon be released

August 6, 2021, 5:02 amredistrictingDerek Muller

Justin Levitt’s tireless work at “All About Redistricting” is being carried on by Doug Spencer while Justin is in the government. It is an extraordinary and valuable resource. From the “About this site”: All About Redistricting is a… Continue reading

“The voting fix that cannot wait: Stopping partisan gerrymandering”

August 4, 2021, 6:34 amredistrictingDerek Muller

Michael Li op-ed in the Washington Post. As he notes, “On Aug. 16, the Census Bureau releases map data to states. After that, states are expected to rush to complete maps. Eighteen states, including Texas, Ohio and North Carolina,… Continue reading

“Redistricting battles kick off early as Democrats scramble to try to cut into GOP advantages”

August 3, 2021, 7:03 pmredistrictingDerek Muller

Washington Post: The battle over the once-a-decade realignment of legislative and congressional districts is underway across the country even before new maps have been drawn, with lawsuits filed in nearly a dozen states, signaling how intense the fight for… Continue reading

“Census Data Change to Protect Privacy Rattles Researchers, Minority Groups”

August 3, 2021, 5:21 amcensus litigation, redistrictingDerek Muller

Wall Street Journal: A plan to protect the confidentiality of Americans’ responses to the 2020 census by injecting small, calculated distortions into the results is raising concerns that it will erode their usability for research and distribution of state… Continue reading

No vacation w/o voting reform

July 30, 2021, 6:37 pmredistrictingNed Foley

So argue Dave Daley and Mike Parsons: “Whatever else Democrats decide to do with election reform before the recess, they should put partisan gerrymandering to a vote ASAP.” I agree wholeheartedly that Congress needs to act now to ban… Continue reading

Dems Attempt to Jumpstart S1

July 29, 2021, 7:00 pmelection administration, redistricting, votingNed Foley

NY Times: Meeting at the White House, maybe. “Democrats are close to finalizing a scaled-back bill that activists hope could be a battering ram in the fight over the filibuster.” I still wonder whether the better filibuster strategy is… Continue reading

S1 v2: Senate revisits electoral reform

July 28, 2021, 11:55 amelection administration, political polarization, redistricting, voting, Voting Rights ActNed Foley

Washington Post reports on today’s meeting among Senate Democrats to bring forward new version of S1, the For the People Act, building upon Senator Manchin’s compromise proposal. There’s also the possibility of new provisions aimed at election subversion. But there’s… Continue reading

The GOP & the VRA: Frenemies?

July 26, 2021, 7:08 pmDepartment of Justice, redistricting, Supreme Court, Voting Rights ActNed Foley

A reader of the blog sent along a link to this article: How to Win a “Long Game”: The Voting Rights Act, the Republican Party, and the Politics of Counter‐Enforcement. Here’s the abstract: ADRIENNE JONES and ANDREW POLSKY examine… Continue reading

NFRPP Discussion of S1/HR1

July 26, 2021, 3:53 pmelection subversion risk, redistricting, votingNed Foley

The Network for Responsible Public Policy last week hosted a discussion on the current status, and future prospects, of the For the People Act, still pending in the Senate as S1 (having been enacted by the House as HR1). Dan… Continue reading

Competitive Districts Part II: Colorado’s Independent Redistricting Commission

July 26, 2021, 11:00 amredistricting, UncategorizedRichard Pildes

Now that I’ve described in Part I how DRA enables assessing a map’s competitiveness, along with other dimensions, I’ll lay out how DRA makes it possible to compare different maps. To do that, I’ll compare the preliminary map for the… Continue reading

Designing Competitive Redistricting Maps: Part I

July 26, 2021, 6:07 amredistricting, UncategorizedRichard Pildes

Colorado’s congressional districts are being drawn by an independent redistricting commission created in 2018 by “Amendment Y,” a legislatively referred constitutional amendment that voters approved. That amendment also specifies the criteria the commission is to use. After specifying that districts… Continue reading

State-Districts Competitiveness Gap

July 25, 2021, 3:52 pmredistrictingNed Foley

Axios has a report on a data project that Election Law at Ohio State (ELOSU) is pursuing. The idea is to compare how competitive the House districts in a state are as a group versus the competitiveness of the state… Continue reading