Redistricting. By now, if you’ve seen a news paper or listened to VPR, you’ve heard that it’s that time of the century again when we reconsider our legislative boundaries. In the not too distant past, this sort of thing was prone to gerrymandering and other tricks done in smoke filled back rooms. One of the glorious things about the computer revolution is that increasingly the process is being brought to a more mathematical plane where redistricting decisions are made through the use of software tools to optimize legislative boundaries and ensure the creed of one person one vote. The more balanced we can make our congressional representative’s districts, the easier it is for us all to ensure that everyone’s voice is heard on an equal level.

In Vermont, we’ll begin hearing more about redistricting as the July deadline for new state senate districts draws near, but in the mean time, lets discuss the tools and methods our redistricting panel will be utilizing.

Vermont, like an increasingly large number of states, has opted to utilize a GIS solution for its redistricting process. GIS (Geographic Information System) is an umbrella term used to define any electronic system that can display geographic data. At its simplest, it’s a way of producing maps. In the hands of analysts, it’s a wonderful tool used to add context to numbers. It is one thing to present a spreadsheet of data indicating where the poorest Vermonters live and quite another to be able to analyze their distribution and see if the poor are clustered in certain areas, if those areas have adequate access to food banks and other services, and help to determine the best ways to focus future assistance.

In terms of redistricting, you can pull in all the data that is important to such decisions (roads, county and town boundaries, census population data, etc) and use that to determine what district boundaries should be. The software that Vermont appears to be using from the meeting minutes of the apportionment board is a product called Mapitude.

Mapitude is capable of working straight from the data provided by the US Census (via the Census TIGER spatial releases) and supports exporting the finished product to a google maps compatible format. All this means that if our state government chooses to do so, they can share the end result of the redistricting with us all so we can all inspect their choices. I have not yet seen any indication of what information will be shared when the final redistricting happens, but I sincerely hope they will share the mapitude plan files and other spatial data with us all, perhaps through VCGI. I’m hoping in the coming weeks to adequately annoy my representatives and senators with questions about the redistricting data. Hopefully you will as well.

Further Reading

Mapitude Sales Brochure

Virginia Districts – A sample of an online district viewing application from 2007

Use of GIS to Demonstrate Public Redistricting – A Cleveland State University study on the possibility of using GIS solutions to allow increased public participation in redistricting.

What is Autobound – An interesting slideshow presentation made by Oregon’s Redistricting Coordinator to Oregon’s State Senate Rules Committee on how a similar product, Autobound, is used in Oregon for redistricting.

2010 TIGER Data – The US Census TIGER gis datasets.

VCGI – Vermont Center for Geographic Information is our state’s clearinghouse for Vermont specific spatial data.