Venyu Blog

Gerrymandering (verb): In the process of setting electoral districts, rather than using uniform geographic standards, Gerrymandering is a practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating geographic boundaries to create partisan, incumbent-protected districts.

The Cloud (noun): Intended to mitigate or even eliminate entirely the practice of gerrymandering.

Let’s speak plainly. I think when it comes to the body politic that backroom deals happen all the time, in virtually every local, state and federal body of government. For example, I’m absolutely convinced there’s this constant unacknowledged undertow of dialogue that occurs behind closed doors between elected officials where one of two exchanges can absolutely be counted on:

1)    We know better than the citizens who elected us because, when you look at it, that’s why they elected us, right?

2)    By voting this way it makes us look good to our constituents and besides, it puts money in our pockets and guarantees our re-election.

Now I’ve heard a lot of outcomes attributed to “the cloud” from lower costs to higher productivity to settling international border disputes (ok, I made that last one up). A recent article in Computerworld, however, favors a somewhat different texture, that being the cloud supporting the exercise of democratic choice. Not democratic “big D” (as in the party), but rather democratic in giving every voter a voice in the process.

In this case the process we’re talking about redistricting. Ok, it’s not as sexy as the latest i-Whatever App from Apple but the case of Los Angeles County  where the process of redistricting — or redrawing the boundaries of representation based on the sometimes arbitrary decisions (made in back offices) by politicians and special interest groups to tweak those boundary lines to benefit them — has now been one-upped by the cloud.

How It’s Being Used

In fact, according to the Computerworld article this year all 4.5 million registered voters in LA county have access to a cloud-based redistricting application called the Public Access Plan. The application, as intended for use, lets voters “view and modify existing maps and boundaries, submit comments, and even create and submit their own plans from scratch.”

Users have access not just to maps with political boundaries, but to geo-coded census and county voting data as well, all of which can be tabulated and displayed over a district map as a table or graph. Or, if they already have a GIS and redistricting software, they can download the data.

“People want to know how the decision is made, and they have an opportunity to participate if they want to take the time,” says Curt Pedersen, chairman of the county’s Supervisorial Redistricting Boundary Committee. The appointed members of the committee will review plans, hold public hearings and make a recommendation to the LA County Board of Supervisors, an elected body that will approve the final plan.

Citizens Redistricting in the Cloud

The article details that complaints about so-called “gerrymandering” in LA county circulated following the 1980 census and again in the 1990 census where the Latino community filed a discrimination lawsuit that led the U.S. Department of Justice to overturn the county’s plan and redraw boundaries. Following the 2000 census the Justice Department required the county to increase citizen involvement in redistricting.

That’s a big change from the backroom deals and less-open processes that caused problems in the past. Complaints about gerrymandering circulated after the 1980 census. And after the 1990 census, the Latino community filed a discrimination lawsuit that led the U.S. Department of Justice to overturn the county’s plan and redraw boundaries. After the 2000 census, the Justice Department required the county to increase citizen involvement in redistricting.

While the Justice Department no longer actively monitors the process, the county remains committed to taking a more open approach, says Mark Greninger, the county’s geographic information officer. “Politicians don’t do redistricting anymore. It’s a citizen’s commission,” he said.

The cloud-based application used for redistricting gives citizens the same tools and data used by the county’s analysts. That includes digital maps with existing congressional, state senate and school district lines, as well as total population, with breakdowns by ethnicity, voter age, gender, household income, home values, political affiliation, and voting behavior in recent elections within each of the county’s 2,900 redistricting units (or RDUs, roughly equivalent to the county subdivisions known as census tracts).

Users can click on RDUs to include or exclude them from a district or simply drag boundary lines. As they update boundaries, the statistical data shown in an embedded table or graph updates dynamically.

The new system is also more convenient for citizens, who no longer need to travel to use a dedicated computer — any computer with a browser and Internet access will do. And access is available 24 hours a day. “People can do it in their own homes,” said Curt Pedersen, chairman of the county’s Supervisorial Redistricting Boundary Committee.

Which, truth be told, keeps those back office discussions to a minimum, eliminates virtually any conflict-of-interest and places the exercise of democracy—powered by the citizenry— front and center.

It may not be world peace but if nothing else in this case at least “the cloud” brings together all those Facebook users to finally “Like” something that’s both beneficial as well as constructive to their own community.