Redistricting has often been called an incumbent-protection scheme. The redistricting that followed the 1990 and 2000 Censuses vividly demonstrated the powerlessness of those interested in a fairer redistricting process. The Real Elections Project will transform that status quo for the round that follows Census 2010.
Project goals
- Providing early warning of where population changes will require the addition, subtraction, or substantial revision of congressional and state legislative seats.
- Creating models plans that both follow neutral redistricting principles and preserve the voting influence of minority voters. By taking advantage of new American Community Survey data, the Project will be able to create and distribute these plans well in advance of the release of Census 2010 data.
- Adjusting the model plans as needed, taking into account Census 2010 data when it is released as well as feedback from the public that has been received in the interim.
- Educating stakeholders to the significant stakes involved.
- Making freely available on the web the Project’s own analyses and plans as well as the tools with which members of the public can create their own plans.
In contrast to the recent history of allowing unfairly drawn districts to become a fait accompli, the Real Elections Project will generate concrete best practices at the beginning of the process, empowering the public (and force the politicians) to take the Voting Rights Act seriously.
Vindicating Voting Rights Act principles
The districts that the Project draws will avoid the common techniques of either “packing” minority voters in just a few districts or “cracking” such voters into several districts. The Project’s focus is on how overall fairness is entirely compatible with true vindication of Voting Rights Act principles. Unlike many others, the Project recognizes that influence can sometimes be achieved in cross-racial and cross-ethnic coalition, and that there is not a single template that can neatly fit the increasingly complex multi-group population patterns that have come to exist in more parts of the country.
The centrality of housing segregation
Throughout the life of the Project, we will highlight the important but hitherto neglected connections between the tendency of many plans to limit the effective influence of minority voters and the underlying residential housing segregation that enables such manipulation.
Project leadership
The Project is led by distinguished experts in data analysis, redistricting, voting rights, and housing segregation.
The Project’s Technical Director, Andrew Beveridge, an expert in using GIS techniques to integrate demographic materials, is the creator of Social Explorer®, the leading website for visualizing and examining demographic trends. Beveridge is Professor of Sociology at Queens College and the Graduate School and University Center of CUNY. Professor Beveridge has served as an expert in numerous redistricting and other civil rights cases. Since 1993, he has consulted on demographics for The New York Times.
The Project’s Director, Craig Gurian, is Executive Director of the Anti-Discrimination Center, and has taught at Fordham Law School, where he has also been a Scholar-in-Residence at the Stein Center for Law & Ethics. Among the articles Professor Gurian has authored is A Return to Eyes on the Prize: Litigating Under the Restored New York City Human Rights Law.” Professor Gurian conceived of and co-counseled the landmark False Claims Act litigation against Westchester County challenging the County’s practice of fraudulently certifying that it had and would “affirmatively further fair housing.” The Court’s grant of partial summary judgment to the Anti-Discrimination Center in February 2009, was the catalyst for an unprecedented desegregation Settlement Order entered later in the year.
The Project’s Legal Director, Randolph McLaughlin, began his legal career in 1978 at the Center for Constitutional Rights. He is currently a Professor of Law at Pace Law School. Professor McLaughlin is an expert in Voting Rights Act litigation. Among his achievements is the landmark decision wherein a federal court found that the Town of Hempstead’s town-wide method of electing the Town Council was discriminatory and ordered that the system be dismantled. More recently, he intervened on behalf of an Hispanic political activist in a Voting Rights lawsuit against the Village of Port Chester, a case resulting in a 2008 federal court ruling that the Village’s election system violated the Voting Rights Act.
Funding
Real Elections Project is funded in part by the Anti-Discrimination Center.
