On a recent evening, Tyler Daye, an organizer with Common Cause North Carolina, hosted an online seminar for residents of the city of Wilson on an important but arcane topic: redistricting.
With the help of publicly available mapping software known as Districtr, Daye clicked through maps of federal and state voting districts, showing how in each case Republican lawmakers in 2011 neatly cleaved the city in two, dividing the largely Black eastern half from the mostly white western half.
Advocacy groups say the new technologies are transforming their fight against gerrymandering, a tactic used by one political party to manipulate district lines to maintain power. The groups' efforts are bolstered by redistricting labs housed at universities including Princeton and Tufts, where experts have developed new ways to measure gerrymandering.
In states like Missouri and Michigan, activists and residents are submitting hundreds of maps to lawmakers and redistricting commissions. Organizers are employing map software to mobilize citizens against gerrymandering. And some groups are using mapping contests to assemble "citizens map corps" to press their case at the local level.
Even if gerrymanders are enacted, however, advocates say their work could strengthen potential court challenges. It could also lay the groundwork for the future by engaging the public and calling out lawmakers' manipulation, they say. "The level of awareness of redistricting, especially now – a lot more people are aware of it, and they can see what used to happen in that so-called 'smoke-filled room,'" Bradlee said.
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice is holding dozens of seminars across eight states that include how to identify gerrymanders using mapping software, said Jeff Loperfido, the group's senior counsel.
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