Princeton Election Consortium

Today the Princeton Gerrymandering Project filed an amicus brief in which we evaluated the North Carolina General Assembly’s remedial maps. The maps were submitted to the Superior Court as part of the Court’s order to undo a partisan gerrymander of the state Senate and House. I’ve written previously about the House and Senate plans. Our amicus brief goes into more detail, county cluster by county cluster.

The brief is here (and errata to correct a few errors here). We’ll post supporting files from this link once they are cleaned up.

This was a group effort – many thanks to Aaron Barden, Hannah Wheelen, and Hope Johnston on the PGP team. The analytics were a PGP-PlanScore collaboration. Finally, a big shout out of thanks to Press Millen, our counsel in North Carolina!

American democracy is changing in ways that we have not seen before in our lifetimes. If you’d like help stop some of the worst offenses, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project has two opportunities for you!

1. We’re hiring an experienced full-stack engineer (job posting here) to help our team build tools to fight gerrymandering.  [Read more →]

(Links: shapefiles, PlanScore, spreadsheet of analytics, and DRA)

A three-judge state court in North Carolina has ordered that both House and Senate legislative maps, which it identified as a partisan gerrymander, must be redrawn by next Wednesday. Last night the House took a step toward meeting that deadline – but the handiwork so far (shown above) still contains enough partisanship to raise an eyebrow.

On Friday night, the state House voted on a remedial legislative map to oversee its own members’ districts. To become law, it also has to pass the Senate. (Under North Carolina law, the governor has no say in the plan, making the state unusually vulnerable to single-party manipulation of the redistricting process.) If passed, the plan will go to a court-appointed special master for evaluation – and possible redrawing, if he finds that the General Assembly’s map is insufficient.

Here at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, we have noticed algorithmic biases in the process used to generate the remedial map. Using the PlanScore.org engine and additional analysis, we furthermore find that the map still contains between one-half and two-thirds of the partisan advantage that was present in the illegal gerrymander. [Read more →]

Today I filed a letter in North Carolina Superior Court regarding the landmark partisan-gerrymandering case that was decided this week. In it, I advocated for “digital sunshine” as a way to make the remedial maps as fair as possible. The letter is here.

The Court held that the General Assembly-drawn House and Senate legislative maps are forbidden partisan gerrymanders under Article I of North Carolina’s state constitution, and can’t be used for the 2020 election. They also ordered that the General Assembly redraw the maps in a public manner, with every change made visible. That’s a great first step toward transparency – but it’s only part of the solution.

I pointed out that to be fully transparent, the work product has to be posted in a digitally-downloadable format. That means shapefiles and/or Census block-equivalency files. These are downloadable formats that allow plans to be evaluated in redistricting software such as Dave’s Redistricting App or PlanScore.org. In conjunction with data that we are gathering at OpenPrecincts.org, such data can empower citizens who want to watch over the process.

If you live in North Carolina, make sure to weigh in with your legislator in favor of Digital Sunshine for redistricting!

Gerrymandering is worse than ever in our lifetimes. We’re working on a strategy to undo this offense (see this recent article of mine and watch this video). And we want you! We have two positions, National Relationship Manager and National Policy Analyst.

The Policy Analyst (job posting here) will expand our law and policy analysis to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. In the last year we’ve worked to apply our data and knowledge to best practices in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, and other states. The ideal candidate will have a Master’s in Public Policy or a J.D., and be comfortable working at the intersection of data, maps, and law.

The Relationship Manager (job posting here) will disseminate our mathematical, legal, and computational tools nationwide in time for the 2021 redistricting cycle.  The ideal candidate should have excellent networking skills and a startup mindset. You’re great at building relationships, extracting people’s motivations, and getting people to take action together. You will build skills and experience that will be transferable to many domains. By the time you’re done, you’ll be ready for leadership in any sector. 

Both positions are full-time for a year, renewable for a second year. We prefer candidates to relocate to the Princeton area, a great place to live.

Pass it on!