Voting & Elections

(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?”

When there is no guarantee of serious competition, “incumbents have no motivation to work across the aisle and more importantly, little to no motivation to actually represent all of the people in their community, rather than just kind of those steadfast supporters that form the core of their districts,’’ said Suzanne Almeida, redistricting and representation counsel at Common Cause.

Say the legislation “is the bold, comprehensive bill we need because the threats to our democracy are deep, systemic, and wide-ranging”