Analyzing Virginia’s Adjusted Redistricting Data

Overview

Virginia uses adjusted (or modified) data for US congressional, state legislative, and state congressional redistricting.

• 8,631,393 total population in the original PL file
• 8,631,393 total population in the adjusted PL file
• 0 total population difference between the two

Even in states where where the total population is unchanged, the distribution of population within the state can be affected.

To give you a sense for how these population shifts affect Virginia’s redistricting, the average district sizes in Virginia are:

• 86,313 people per state House district
• 215,784 people per state Senate district
• 784,672 people per Congressional district

The dataset used to create this report is the official redistricting dataset.

County Level Analysis

See the appendix for a detailed breakdown of county level population changes.

Block Level Analysis

In general, the changes in block population are not uniform: most blocks are unaffected by modification, while a handful of blocks lose a large amount of population that goes to a larger number of blocks in smaller quantities.

• 63,491 census blocks in Virginia
• 139,353 census blocks have the same population following modification
• 24,035 census blocks gained population following modification
• 103 census blocks lost population following modification (Of the 103 census blocks that lost population following reallocation, 89 contained facilities according to our analysis conducted with PPI data.)
• 21 census blocks have a negative population following modification.

Official Language

The official language for Virginia’s adjustment is:

… except that no person shall be deemed to have gained or lost a residence by reason of conviction and incarceration in a federal, state, or local correctional facility. Persons incarcerated in a federal, state, or local correctional facility shall be counted in the locality of their address at the time of incarceration, and the Division of Legislative Services shall adjust the census data pursuant to § 24.2-314 for this purpose. [S]