State Reports on Redistricting Criteria
Download Reports
All state reports are available to download through the RDH’s Harvard Dataverse
DownloadWhat We Collected
We have collected any publicly available reports on legislative and congressional redistricting criteria in the 2021 redistricting cycle.
The most commonly reported metrics are on total population and population deviations. Other common metrics include:
- Voting Age Population (VAP) by district: population 18 years of age and older in each district
- Total population and/or VAP by race: total population and/or population 18 years of age and older by race and ethnicity in each district
- District composition or splits: what cities, towns, counties, and other geographies lie within each district or are split by them
- Compactness: compactness scores of the districts
- Core retention: percent of the population in the old districts that are retained in the new districts
- Competitiveness/Voter registration/Partisanship: partisan makeup of districts, as measured by voter registration or electoral outcomes
Some states released several metrics combined in a report. These files are labeled as such.
And this is not a comprehensive list! It is important to remember that states vary in their criteria, and thus the metrics a state can be expected to report — and how they report them — will vary accordingly.
How We Collected These Reports
We collected these reports in the summer of 2022 by searching on state redistricting pages. For states in which we were not able to locate metrics (N/A), we reached out to a state official or staffer to confirm that none were publicly available. In a few cases, documentation was shared with us via personal communication. You can find the links to specific sources for criteria in the ReadMe.
State Reports
Redistricting Criteria
Federal Requirements
Every state must draw congressional and state legislative plans that comply with federal criteria. These federal criteria require congressional districts to be as equal in population as possible, while legislative districts must be “substantially equal.” Subsequent Supreme Court decisions have clarified these standards mean numerical equality for congressional districts (no more than one person deviation) and generally no more than a 10% deviation for legislative districts. Plans must also avoid diluting protected minority groups’ right to vote, as prohibited by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
State Requirements
In addition to these federal criteria, states must also follow state-specific criteria for redistricting. These criteria may be found in the state’s constitution, in state statutes or code, in documents from redistricting committees or commissions, or in judicial orders. In some cases, states may echo or expand on the federal criteria. For example: by requiring stricter population deviations for legislative plans. Other states have criteria that are “on the books” but no longer legally enforceable. For example: by requiring that no county in the state be split during redistricting.
Related Resources
These reports and datasets can be used to analyze the redistricting cycle
Community of Interest Map Collection Project
The Community of Interest COI Map Collection Project aims to collect COI maps submitted to legislative and congressional redistricting bodies and organizations during the 2021 redistricting cycle.
States that Adjust the Census Data for Redistricting
Read reports that demonstrate the differences between the unadjusted and adjusted data in applicable states. These reports show how adjustments change the population within a state and the implications for these changes on representation.
Racially Polarized Voting Case Tool
Included is an interactive table of all the federal Voting Rights Act lawsuits that include discussion of RPV analysis from 2010-2021, an article explaining what RPV analysis is, and a breakdown of important case law from each Circuit Court that guides how RPV analysis should occur in that jurisdiction.