Gerrymandering/Redistricting

Aaron Scherb, director of legislative affairs for Common Cause, which supports the voting rights and the campaign and elections overhaul bills, said his group was ramping up in support of both measures.  “We’re continuing to mobilize and energize our thousands of activists and volunteers to do whatever it takes to get the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act this fall,” he said.

Pennsylvania becomes the latest state to ensure equitable representation for incarcerated people.

"The politician chooses their district and their voters, and if they don't like a group of their voters, they can carve them off and move them someplace else," said Michael Goff, Maryland president of Common Cause. "They can create their own safe district, what we call safe seats." Common Cause pushes states to turn census numbers over to independent commissions to draw nonpartisan congressional maps. "It's a once-in-ten-year process," said Goff. "Probably the most important political development of the next ten years is happening in the next few months, and most voters don't even know about it."

(Reuters) - On a recent evening, Tyler Daye, an organizer with Common Cause North Carolina, hosted an online seminar for residents of the city of Wilson on an important but arcane topic: redistricting. With the help of publicly available mapping software known as Districtr, Daye clicked through maps of federal and state voting districts, showing how in each case Republican lawmakers in 2011 neatly cleaved the city in two, dividing the largely Black eastern half from the mostly white western half. “When your communities are split, your voting power and representation is split as well,” he told attendees. “This attacks the very backbone, the very core of our democratic system, which is having the voters, the citizens, picking their legislators. Through this system, it’s the other way around.” ... “It’s almost like a light-bulb moment,” said Bob Phillips, the executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, a voting rights organization. “We feel we’ve been able to reach people in ways we never have.”

“Where do we know people are, but they just weren't counted because of unusual circumstances?” said Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director at the good-government group Common Cause. She noted that in addition to the significant problems caused by pandemic, this was the first time the Census Bureau pushed people to respond online, a major shift for the agency. “It’s sort of like the Hubble telescope. It’s the best that we got, but we know there’s a scratch on it,” she added. “Can we figure out exactly where the distortion is, that’s caused by that scratch on the lens?”