Maptitude for Redistricting Newsletter Fall 2019

Fall 2019 Newsletter


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Caliper Corporation will be presenting Maptitude for Redistricting and Maptitude for Online Redistricting as part of the NCSL's Technology Session at the Columbus, Ohio Redistricting Seminar. Don't miss this opportunity to see an in-person demonstration of the software during the session and throughout this targeted two-and-a-half-day event.

Do you want to learn more? Be sure to schedule time for a one-on-one demonstration of the tools!

New Releases Coming in 2020

Work has been underway to support the release of Maptitude for Redistricting 2020 and Maptitude for Online Redistricting 2020. The new releases will feature numerous user interface improvements and a significant expansion in the methods and metrics provided for evaluating plans based on the latest court cases and academic research. There will also be significant performance improvements.

New Methods and Metrics
As most everyone knows, there is no one single ideal metric for judging the compactness or contiguity of a redistricting plan. Consequently, multiple measures are necessary and will be insightful. The new measures include cut edges and fracking.

There has also been evolution in judging the partisan bias of a redistricting plan. To support such inquiries, there will also be several measures of partisan asymmetry added to Maptitude for Redistricting.

Introduced by academic mathematicians, statistical ensembles of plausible redistricting plans were pivotal in the most recent court decision in North Carolina. Maptitude for Redistricting 2020 will include support for this approach and will generate vast samples of possible plans at the touch of a button.

Automated, Optimal, Non-partisan Redistricting
After a protracted research and development effort, Caliper is pleased to announce that we have developed a practical and efficient tool for automated, optimal, non-partisan redistricting. This method can be applied at various levels of geography and has been shown in our testing to be highly effective in statewide legislative redistricting. It can also be customized to address specific issues that arise in local and statewide contexts.

Automated generation of redistricting plans can serve as a point of departure for making further refinements and can demonstrate what is possible to achieve with a partisan-neutral approach. It can also greatly reduce the time and effort required to accomplish redistricting tasks.

Redistricting Support Services:
With the increasing complexity in the mathematics of redistricting, Caliper will be providing consulting services to help organizations develop redistricting plans that reflect their goals and objectives.

Interested in what mathematics and computing are bringing to redistricting? Ask us for an in-person explanation or request a web demo.

Featured Map:
Redistricting Commissions Over the Decades

States with legislative and/or congressional redistricting commissions

» More about this map and other featured maps

Jump Start Your Redistricting

Caliper offers a 3-day Maptitude for Redistricting training course that covers all of the redistricting features of the software. The first day is devoted to the key mapping features that are used when building a plan. The second day focuses on more technical GIS, mapping, and database topics including selection sets, geocoding incumbents, combining race data using formula fields, statistics, joining political data to the geography, and disaggregating and aggregating data to other geographic layers. The third day is devoted to plan building and all the other redistricting features of the software.

Join us for our next training on February 4-6, 2020 in Newton, Massachusetts
Register for Training

Learning:

Training: February 4-6, 2020 • Newton MA, USA • Details | Register
Videos: Maptitude for Redistricting 2019 Videos