One geospatial task with large implications for many democracies is the drawing of representatives' election districts, or redistricting. This talk will show how people can now harness the strengths of QGIS, using a plugin introduced in 2020, not only to create new redistricting plans, but also to address some of the particular problems and challenges that redistricting presents. We will briefly present an example workflow using the software features as well as actual case studies.
Until earlier this year, there hasn't been a robust free and open source option for doing redistricting on the desktop. With redistricting such an important election-related undertaking (especially with the significant upcoming post-census redraw of districts in the US in 2021), this new package for QGIS fills a significant void.
Taking advantage of the capacities of QGIS 3, the new plugin offers a collection of features that simplify what would otherwise be burdensome parts of the process.
The talk will not only present the software itself, but examples of ways that the software can be (and has been!) used in multiple countries.
Speakers will include:
- A geographer and political scientist who, for the last six years of her career, has focused on voting rights and civil rights in the US.
- The globetrotting attorney/geographer/software developer who created the plugin.
- A geographer who maintains a noted blog about data visualization and storytelling related to redistricting.
Blake Esselstyn, GISP, AICP, is a North Carolina-based geographer and redistricting consultant. He's been working with GIS for more than two decades, but in the last five years has really come to appreciate FOSS4G.
Megan started her career in voting rights working with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law where she focused on quantitative analyses for Voting Rights Act (VRA) compliance and litigation including racially polarized voting statistics and redistricting. She also worked as the in-house researcher and lead scientist with NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF) and Leadership Conference Education Fund. She additionally does voting work as a consultant. In addition to creating new redistricting plans, she's often called on to evaluate potential VRA litigation by evaluating maps, creating alternative maps, and examining racially polarized voting patterns.