WASHINGTON D.기음. – Drawing electoral boundaries using 오직 data for citizens over age 18 abandons constitutional principles of one person, one vote, relies on fundamentally faulty data and is part of a patently partisan plot to shift representation away from communities of color to areas where 하얀색 populations live, according to a new report released today by Common Cause, a nonpartisan government watchdog group. 

Whitewashing Representation: How Using Citizenship Data to Gerrymander will Undermine our Democracy explains why state leaders ~해야 한다 continue drawing electoral boundaries using 에이 총 coun티 of the population to ensure all 사람들 are represented fairly in federal and state legislatures. 

The report comes as GOP party operatives ramp up their efforts to gerrymander following the 2020 Census. Republican strategist Thomas Hofeller was caught recommending a citizenship question be added to the census to advantage “Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.” After failing to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that was necessary, President Trump ordered federal agencies to provide all data on citizenship to the U.S. Census Bureau, which will combine the citizenship data with its counts. The bureau is ordered to send the data to states for redistricting purposes.

The problem with this approach is two-fold, according to the report. 중uch of the administrative data on citizenship is inaccurate or out-of-date 그리고 matching this inaccurate data to Census data ~ 할 것이다 introduce significant errors to the data states need to use to redistrict. As has become increasingly evident from recently revealed communications and studies by partisan operatives, this scheme is intended to eliminate whole populations ~의 Latino and other immigrant communities from 그만큼 census data used to draw new districts in 2021 and beyond. 그만큼 racial and political repercussions are huge. 

“Millions of young people and people of color are at risk of losing their representatives in Congress and statehouses across the country if Republican party operatives succeed in using citizenship data to draw electoral boundaries,” said Keshia Morris, manager of Common Cause's census work and co-author of the report. “This is nothing more than a racially discriminatory plot to advantage white voters at the expense of brown and black voters.” 

엘eaders in states including Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska and Texas are reportedly considering 어떻게 에게 abandon total population and use citizen-only data to redistrict. 티he GOP’s redistricting experts advised all legislators 티o use citizenship data to tilt the electoral maps earlier this month at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual meeting. 

“Gerrymandering with citizenship data is a radical effort to undermine our representative democracy,” 말했다 Suzanne Almeida, counsel for Common Cause’s redistricting work and co-author of the report. “People can fight back by being counted in the census and demanding leaders uphold the principles of equal representation put forth in the Constitution.” 

중ajor takeaways from Whitewashing Representation: 

• Using citizenship data for redistricting gives political party operatives multiple chances to undercount children and people of color and steal their representation. Legal residents who are counted in the census, for instance, could be deleted from the count used to draw electoral boundaries because of errors in administrative data sets.  
• Not counting people under 18 and non-cit나zens when drawing electoral boundaries advantages “Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites” and disadvantages people in urban areas, where populations are more diverse, according to the Hofeller files. He touted this 에이에스 에이 “radical departure from the ‘one person, one vote’ rule” upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court for the past 60 years. 
• Using citizenship data for redistricting perpetuates fear of racial discrimination and immigration enforcement among legal residents and undocumented immigrants. Significant protections are in place to prevent census data from being used 에게 target individuals for enforcement, but there are risks associated with creating a non-citizen database.  

Read the report 여기.

Read more about the Hofeller files 여기.