And you can play along at home!
First, go to this website. It's a great resource for the public to be able to do their own Congressional redistricting.
Once you have gone there and made sure your Silverlight is up to date, Download this file and save it to your desktop. That is a shape file of every precinct in the state, which I filled in yesterday with the precinct breakdowns for every current Virginia Senate District. This is somewhat complicated- VPAP has great maps on their site, but they include split precincts on multiple maps, so I had to use the SBE and the 2000 lines to allocate split precincts into one district or the other for this exercise.
Now, let me explain how this works. Once you download my file, go to the website above and click on "open" in the upper left hand corner, and then open my file from your desktop onto the system. Once it uploads (may take a couple minutes) you will see each of the current Virginia Senate Districts on the map. You can zoom in and out as with any google map based system. On the left side, you can see population and whether the district is too large or too small. If you click on an individual district the demographics of that district will pop up on the right hand side. Just click on the big green "color districts" button on the right side to start changing lines.
As you scroll over each precinct you will see a pop up on the right with the demographics for that precinct as well as the Presidential voting percentages along with a party vote average from major elections. (When you look at an entire district those political numbers are a little off- I think they are averaging the averages of the precincts instead of calculating real votes, so don't follow that too closely. The demographic numbers are fine).
Here's a few tips as you start looking at this data:
1) Try to keep districts within a 2% margin of error rate (no smaller than 196,000, no larger than 204,000).
2) Try to keep clear communities of interest together and respect county lines when possible.
3) Try not to draw districts on opposite sides of water without a bridge to connect them.
4) To comply with the Voting Rights act make sure the 2nd, 5th, 9th, 16th, 18th stay above 50% African American with the over 18 population.
5) Finally, please draw Mark Herring into Maryland and reunite Dave Marsden with his wife in Signal Hill precinct.
Final rule: Have fun!
do you think "communities of interest" or even county lines are considered?
Posted by: kelley in virginia | February 23, 2011 at 09:47 AM
Only enough for marketing purposes to claim they did so.
Posted by: Not Larry Sabato | February 23, 2011 at 09:58 AM
Tell me again why we need majority-Black Senate districts? Are Democrats so racist that they will not elect Blacks?
Posted by: Jack | February 23, 2011 at 10:14 AM
Federal law says we need them Jack.
Posted by: Not Larry Sabato | February 23, 2011 at 10:18 AM
Do you agree?
Posted by: Jack | February 23, 2011 at 10:35 AM
Yes, I support majority-minority districts.
Posted by: Not Larry Sabato | February 23, 2011 at 11:45 AM
Jack that comment is ridiculous. Doug Wilder would have never become gov if dems didnt support black candidates. Same for Obama as pres., Onzlee Ware as delegate etc.
Posted by: SE VA MWC Alum | February 23, 2011 at 11:56 AM
Also Jack the biggest beneficiaries of Minority majority districts are republicans.
Posted by: SE VA MWC Alum | February 23, 2011 at 11:57 AM
And in the interest of dislosure, IMHO majority minority districts are a good thing when they make geographic sense or keep localities together to a greater extent. Since they often reult in more gerrymandering I think we should revisit the concept of influence districts (generally 40% or more minority-giving minority groups a strong say even though they are not a majority)
Posted by: SE VA MWC Alum | February 23, 2011 at 12:01 PM
NLS,
I saw that Libby Garvey is running for Ticer's Senate seat, which covers only a very small part of Arlington. Is Ms. Garvey going to have a residency problem? Or will redistricting help her out here?
Posted by: Practical Thinking | February 23, 2011 at 12:24 PM
By any chance do you have that precinct file in actual shapefile format? IE .shp with the associated .dbf , .prf, and .shx?
The Census website only distributes the precinct shapefiles on a county by county basis and I'd rather open the file in a real GIS program.
Posted by: Max Shapiro | February 23, 2011 at 12:44 PM
Good, NLS, but why? As SE VA MWC Alum rightly points out, the assertion that Democrats won't support Black candidates is ridiculous. So why do we need majority-Black districts?
Alum, I don't really care whether majority-Black districts benefit Republicans. State-sponsored racial discrimination is wrong, no matter who benefits.
Posted by: Jack | February 23, 2011 at 01:04 PM
Jack, I don't think we disagree that there are some racist white Democrats out there who won't vote as solidly D (especially at a local level) when the Democrats are running an African American.
Posted by: Not Larry Sabato | February 23, 2011 at 01:19 PM
Max, I just did it in a way that people could use it on that website. Sorry.
Posted by: Not Larry Sabato | February 23, 2011 at 02:24 PM
Oh well, its great that you did even that. It's more than 99% of bloggers do to inform their readers. So kudos just the same.
Posted by: Max Shapiro | February 23, 2011 at 07:35 PM
You're much tougher on your readers than the General Assembly is on itself, they only have to get within 5% of the target number for each district.
Posted by: Steve Vaughan | February 24, 2011 at 09:55 AM
5% was the rule in 2001. Would be surprised if they went that broad in 2011 with split control.
Posted by: Not Larry Sabato | February 24, 2011 at 10:04 AM
I'd always understood that to be a mandate from the feds to get them within 5%. I could be wrong about that though.
Posted by: Steve Vaughan | February 24, 2011 at 11:33 AM
Yes, 5% is the fed max.
Posted by: Not Larry Sabato | February 24, 2011 at 11:36 AM
I eliminated a district in Tidewater and moved it to the Prince Williams/Loudon area. It seemed like the only way to go.
Posted by: 3rd's the word | February 24, 2011 at 05:44 PM
Thanks for doing this, Ben.
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