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Redistricting and Discrimination

Podcast

, Leslie Barnes

Issues

Voting Rights


 

In this episode, we’re picking up a topic we talked about months ago: Redistricting. Last time, we talked about the general process for redistricting, and we encouraged our nonprofit community to learn how the new maps would be drawn in their state or their local district.   

This time, we’re going to look at how the nonprofit community can advocate for their mission and their own community no matter the process in your home state, and regardless of where your state is in the redistricting process. We also wanted to lift up that historically, how we encourage voting or limit voting in America is also through the lens of discrimination.   

Our Hosts for This Episode:

Jen Powis Leslie Barnes

Topics:

  • How the census, which is required to proportionally represent an entire state’s population, encountered a growing problem that politicians couldn’t fix for decades. 
  • How the Supreme Court in conjunction with citizen action in the 1960s addressed this issue, which resulted in the “One Person One Vote” doctrine. 
  • How redistricting election maps works and how it differs by state. 
  • Regardless of your state’s system to draw maps, your nonprofit can play a vital role in protecting your community’s right to vote and to participate in policy-making. 
  • Current day challenges in redistricting include high population densities, whether to count undocumented residents or only US citizens and questions on equity and race. 
  • How some nonprofits are engaging in the redistricting process and how your organization can get involved as well. 
  • What do gerrymandering and “packing” mean? 
  • What are “communities of interest” and what is “contiguity”? 
  • The importance of knowing the computer model your state uses to create maps  

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