Preparing for 2010: Redistricting The Nation
The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has the potential to greatly assist advocates in the call for unbiased legislative redistricting. After the 2010 census, there will be a nationwide legislative redistricting process. Historically, gerrymandering which is a legislative technique that allows politicians to manipulate electoral boundaries and influence elections, has been used to circumvent the political process. GIS tools offer an opportunity to allow the public to measure compactness (how the district is formed or filled) and gerrymandering of U.S. election districts.
Avencia Incorporated, a geographic analysis and software development firm, has recently introduced the website Redistricting The Nation. The site provides nonprofits and the public with information about the redistricting process, along with innovative interactive tools that demonstrate fair representation and competitive elections. For example, advocacy groups can enter an address and view the "shape" of the election districts and compare the "compactness" with other districts. The site allows the user to experiment with drawing new boundaries to create compactness scores for the new district.
Avencia also released a White Paper on Gerrymandering and Redistricting, and a report titled Redrawing the Map on Redistricting 2010: A National Study. The study includes local districts for several cities, and various techniques for measuring a districts' compactness. They note that the practice of manipulating districts for political gain, gerrymandering, seems to be getting worse. "While poor compactness scores do not prove gerrymandering, they are a measurable indication of the practice." Gerrymandering reduces the impact of individual voters and affects the competitiveness of races.
Redistricting the Nation states; "We believe a confluence of the internet, geographic data and tools for online collaboration have the potential to transform the redistricting process by enabling citizens to participate directly in the effort. Rather than taking place in meetings behind closed doors where incumbent legislators parcel out blocks of voters in order to guarantee they remain in office (the usual process in many cities and states), redistricting should occur (at least in part) in the most public forum possible: the web."
e.politics compliments the site as, "a lot of fun for researchers and political junkies to play with, and the statistical analyses provide a nice confirmation of what an eyeball survey will often tell you right away — when district lines look funny, they probably are. What no statistical analysis can capture is the actual political calculus involved — whose seat is being saved and whose is being sacrificed. The power to redistrict IS political power."
Avencia also has other various advocacy tools, for example, using mapping to visualize information about campaign contributions. Such tools "put the power of GIS and mapping into the hands of voters, grassroots campaign workers, candidates, and advocacy organizations."
Other than the issue of redistricting, the use of GIS can be valuable for various advocacy campaigns. Such efforts can be greatly enhanced by being able to illustrate both the impacts and intersection of different policies. For example, GIS gives advocates a way to demonstrate how laws and policies affect people based on where they live. Through the use of this tool, you can visually show adverse effects upon a population, and more effectively focus or change advocacy strategies.
Mapping is an excellent way to get a clear message across and frame an issue, considering a visual representation can present multiple issues together at once. You do not have read it, or understand data analysis to understand the problem. Certainly, further exploration will be made to understand how organizations are working to use GIS maps for advocacy.