Redistricting and Voting Rights Data

Data useful in redistricting and voting rights

ACS and CVAP Data

The Census Bureau collects a wealth of data on large samples of the electorate under the American Community Survey (ACS) series. In addition to demographic data, the Census Bureau collects information on employment, income, education, disabilities, language spoken at home, and more. Having detailed data on residents can enable better understanding of where voters are likely to need more or less resources and assistance voting. Citizen Voting Age Population (CVAP) data can be linked with voter file data to understand where residents are more or less likely to be registered to vote, and thus to target voter registration efforts.

To download ACS and CVAP data choose a state and filter type to filter by name: CVAP or ACS

Voter File Data

Voter file data contains information about voter history, and sometimes race and other demographics. This can be useful for identifying patterns of discrimination, or used in conjunction with other datasets to identify areas in which populations may be excluded from the political process.

To download voter file data, choose a state and filter by data type: voter file or source: L2

Turnout Statistics

Using the voter file data, we calculated turnout statistics at the block and VTD level for the 2020 general election in all 50 states. This can be useful for identifying patterns of discrimination, or used in conjunction with other datasets to identify areas in which populations may be excluded from the political process.

To download turnout statistics, choose a state and filter by data type: voter file or source: L2

Legislative Boundaries

Legislative boundaries are essential for understanding in which districts voters reside, and thus what elections are on the ballot.

To download legislative boundaries, choose a state and search by: districts plan in the title field or filter by type: boundaries

Incumbent data

Incumbent demographic data is useful for voting rights work, by helping analysts focus their efforts on the jurisdictions most likely to feature racially polarized voting, or voter suppression efforts.

To request incumbent data, fill out our request form

Other data useful for voting rights

Although the Redistricting Data Hub has a lot of data that is useful for voting rights and election protection, there are other datasets that we do not host, which are important and useful to have.

The Census Bureau, for instance, collects a wealth of data on large samples of the electorate. In addition to demographic data, the Census Bureau collects information on employment, income, education, disabilities, language spoken at home, and more. This data can be used to better target resources and engage the public.

Two other good examples of data useful for voting rights are candidate data and polling place data. The latter is particularly useful for election protection work, which requires predicting where problems are likely to occur on Election Day. These datasets are typically available from a Secretary of State or State Division of Elections. The Center for Public Integrity and Stateline have collected polling place data in several states from 2012 to 2020.