Census data could mean redistricting
2020 Census data may lead to redistricting.
After pandemic delays, the U.S. Census on Thursday released the local-level population and demographic data from the 2020 count of the nation's population that state lawmakers in Massachusetts will use to redraw the boundaries of the state's legislative and Congressional districts.
Shortly after the data was made available, advocates with the Drawing Democracy Coalition said they plan to use it to produce the organization's own "unity map" that would keep communities together and ensure equitable representation for Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian-American communities, people of color, immigrants, and low-income communities. The group said it plans to eventually submit its map to the Special Joint Committee on Redistricting.
"Redistricting is a once-in-a-decade opportunity to better ensure authentic representation and open new opportunities for building power for BIPOC, immigrant and low-income communities," the coalition said in a statement. "Especially as efforts are underway across the country to restrict access to voting, it is more important than ever to ensure that voters can elect representatives of their choice. While today's release of the redistricting data is several months delayed, the Drawing Democracy Coalition is confident that, along with the Special Joint Committee on Redistricting, we have a strong plan in place to ensure that the process remains fair and transparent and that the new district maps are approved by the November 8, 2021 deadline."
Lawmakers planning to seek reelection in 2022 must reside within their new district boundaries for at least one year ahead of time, making Nov. 8, 2021 a soft deadline for the new maps that would give candidates a chance to ensure they can be eligible for next year's election.
Thursday's data release from the U.S. Census Bureau follows its April release of congressional apportionment data, which provided total state head counts to be used to determine each state's number of U.S. House of Representatives seats and in funding formulas. The 2020 Census counted 7,029,917 people living in Massachusetts, a 7.4 percent increase over the past decade that outpaced the 4.1 percent average in the Northeast and equaled the growth rate of the country as a whole.
But that data was not enough to draw maps of voting districts within states because it did not get into the granular details like where in a state people live, or their age, race and ethnicity.
The redistricting data released Thursday gets down to the individual Census block, counts only residents (the apportionment data also includes "federally-affiliated" people living overseas), and includes race, ethnicity and some housing information. It became available Thursday in what the Census called a "legacy format" that states, redistricting software vendors and groups like the National Conference of State Legislatures are familiar with.
"However they do require some additional handling to be able to pull out familiar tables for specific geography," James Whitehorne, chief of the Redistricting and Voting Rights Data Office at the U.S. Census told reporters earlier this week during a briefing. He added, "[W]e also know that despite the states being able to use this format for redistricting there will be many in the public that want access to this data. We've been working hard to make sure that they too will have tools to help them look at this data."
The Census plans to release the same data in manners more accessible to the public by the end of September, including through the data.census.gov platform. Governors, state legislative leaders and any redistricting commissions around the country will get DVDs and flash drives with an integrated data browsing software by the end of next month.
But by then, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law said, "many states are expected to start and potentially even complete their map-drawing processes."
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