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Modern technology allows electoral mapmakers to not only draw thousands of maps, but also create maps look fair but are actually severe gerrymanders that rig elections for one party. Illustration: Guardian Design
It’s easier than ever to carve US electoral districts to one party’s benefit – but it’s also easier to expose the practice
The first time Kim Brace drew electoral district maps for the state of Illinois, more than 40 years ago, things moved slowly.
He and his colleagues hung maps of the state on the walls in the office of the speaker of the state house of representatives. Someone would climb a ladder, moving different blocks of people into different districts while another took notes below. In the evenings, they would go to the largest bank in Springfield and use a mainframe computer to generate a daily report. Over the course of the four-month legislative session, Brace was able to draw about 10 possibilities for electoral maps.
Ten years later, in the 1990 redistricting cycle, Brace, the president of Election Data Services, a redistricting consulting firm, was back at the drawing board. But this time, he and his colleagues didn’t have to draw on walls. They rigged up two personal computers – one couldn’t handle all the data they needed – with rudimentary mapping software. They drew about 100 potential maps.
By 2000, Brace was able to draw about 1,000 plans. In 2010, the last time he drew maps, he was able to produce 10,000 possible maps. “It lets you see and imagine different alternatives,” Brace said. “It gives me that capability of understanding the parameters and playing field that I’m playing in.”
It’s an exponential growth that reflects just how quickly the nature of redistricting – the decennial process of redrawing electoral districts – has changed. Every 10 years, when mapmakers sit down to draw district lines, they take on a God-like role, grouping tiny census blocks – the smallest unit of geography the Census Bureau defines – into different districts.
They’re looking not just at demographic information like age, sex, race and ethnicity and income level, but also at years of election results in presidential, gubernatorial, senatorial, US House and other races. In recent years, as American politics has become more polarized, it’s become easier to predict how voters will cast their ballots, political scientists say. Using that data, the mapmakers can precisely forecast how elections will turn out for years to come.
The ease with which mapmakers can move around pieces of the puzzle in creating a map now allows them to see more variety, tweak more and make their maps more and more precise.