{"id":1224,"date":"2023-01-10T14:50:34","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T19:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/haystaqdna.com\/staging\/8843\/?p=1224"},"modified":"2024-12-16T09:28:49","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T14:28:49","slug":"common-redistricting-criteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haystaqdna.com\/staging\/8843\/common-redistricting-criteria\/","title":{"rendered":"Common Redistricting Criteria"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Common Redistricting Criteria<\/b><\/h2>\n

Download a PDF of this Report<\/a><\/p>

After each decennial Census, governments at all levels (e.g. congressional, state legislative, municipal, county, special districts) adjust the districts of their respective legislative bodies to reflect the changing demographics of their region. The individual or group drawing the map must be given criteria on what they can and cannot do when creating a map. Redistricting processes and rules vary across states, so map-drawers must be aware of the laws of the state and jurisdiction to avoid having their maps rejected or deemed unconstitutional. Some states will strictly define what redistricting criteria must be followed while others will not. Some municipalities or jurisdictions will also have previously defined their own criteria. Other jurisdictions will be able to adopt their own criteria.<\/span><\/p>

This document is not intended to be a legal guide, but simply a discussion of the most common redistricting criteria.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are some criteria that are part of almost all redistricting guidelines:<\/span><\/h4>\n
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  1. Equal Population<\/b> — The population of each new district should be \u2018equal\u2019. When drawing congressional maps, court rulings have largely defined \u2018equal\u2019 as \u201cwithin 1 person\u201d based on the census\u2019 latest PL 94-171 file. Unless state statute dictates otherwise, counties, municipalities and special districts are not required to adhere to such a strict definition, and districts can have differences within a small percentage of one another. Some states define the allowed deviations, otherwise the jurisdiction does it themselves. Some jurisdictions use as low as a 2% deviation, others as high as 10%. When you talk about percentages you also have to determine if this is an cumulative difference or individual district difference from the ideal population. An example would be a jurisdiction with a 5% deviation rule. A proposed map has one district with a -3% deviation (underpopulated) and another district with a positive 4% deviation (overpopulated). Under the rules is each district under a 5% cutoff and OK, or does the cumulative difference of 7% violate the rule?<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Contiguity<\/b> — The district must be one cohesive unit. For example, you can\u2019t draw one part of a district in the southeast corner of a county and add an unattached region in the northwest corner of the county. Those two sections will need to be physically linked. Definitions of contiguity can also vary between states, as some consider corner and point contiguity as part of the criteria, particularly in areas where geographic limitations (e.g. bodies of water) are present.\u00a0 There are of course sometimes areas which are not contiguous to the jurisdiction itself (examples would include physical islands or annexed pieces of land that do not touch the original jurisdiction), these of course cannot be drawn to be contiguous.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>https:\/\/redistricting.lls.edu\/redistricting-101\/where-are-the-lines-drawn\/#contiguity<\/a><\/b><\/li>\n
  3. Comply with the Federal Voting Rights Act<\/b> — Section Two of the Federal Voting Rights Act prohibits discrimination <\/span>on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group. Generally speaking, it means existing majority-minority districts should be preserved and new majority-minority districts should be created where possible. Jurisdictions often use CVAP (Citizen Voting Age Population) data to determine minority percentages, and the allowed source data should be specified (CVAP vs VAP vs PL file demographics). At the federal level, a majority minority district must be 50% plus one additional person of the same protected class in one district. If a new majority minority district can be drawn in a \u201creasonably compact\u201d way, it must be drawn. <\/span>Section Five of the VRA required certain states and jurisdictions with a history of racial gerrymandering to submit their redistricting plans to the Department of Justice for preclearance, but this was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 (<\/span>Shelby County v. Holder<\/span><\/i>).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Comply with State or Jurisdiction Voting Rights Laws<\/b> \u2013 Federal VRA law is complicated, but largely dictates that a minority majority district consists of a single protected minority comprising more than 50% of the population, but state law or local jurisdiction law can go further than federal law. State law might favor the creation of \u2018coalition districts\u2019 where multiple minorities together can form a minority district. Additionally, states or jurisdictions can write Voting Rights Laws to not use a hard 50% cutoff, but rather use an \u201cability to elect\u201d cutoff. This means if a district is 40% minority, but that 40% along with allied voters is large enough to see their \u2018candidate of choice\u2019 win, that can still be considered a minority district. Federal law, however, supersedes state and municipal law.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    There are other criteria that are widely considered to be best practices:<\/h4>\n