{"id":30672,"date":"2018-06-24T23:55:43","date_gmt":"2018-06-25T06:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=arcnews&#038;p=30672"},"modified":"2023-08-07T15:36:35","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T22:36:35","slug":"utah-involves-public-in-redistricting","status":"publish","type":"arcnews","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcnews\/utah-involves-public-in-redistricting","title":{"rendered":"Utah Involves Public in Redistricting"},"author":1162,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1041,401,9372],"tags":[1451,9392,9402,9412],"arcnews_issues":[9332],"class_list":["post-30672","arcnews","type-arcnews","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collaboration","category-government","category-redistricting","tag-citizen-engagement","tag-redistricting","tag-state-government","tag-transparency","arcnews_issues-arcnews-summer-2018","arcnews_sections-your-work"],"acf":{"short_description":"With the Esri Redistricting solution, the state made the process of revising legislative boundaries much more transparent.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">With the Esri Redistricting Solution, the State Increased Transparency of Revising Legislative Boundaries<\/h2>\r\nRedrawing representative districts in the United States is a contentious process fraught with acrimony. Because of the political influence at stake, the exercise regularly leads to allegations of unfairness. Nevertheless, after each US Census is taken, states must examine\u2014and potentially redraw\u2014their congressional districts.\r\n\r\nFor the last round of redistricting in 2011, the State of Utah took a novel step toward mitigating criticism: its Redistricting Committee made the process much more transparent to better educate citizens about how it works. Using the Esri Redistricting solution, the committee opened up the proceedings to the public, revealing all the intricacies involved in redistricting and displaying the many genuine obstacles to formulating a solution that satisfies everyone.\r\n<h2>Opening Up Redistricting<\/h2>\r\nFollowing the 2010 US Census, Utah, like all other US states, had to reconsider how its congressional districts were split up. State legislators wanted the public to be involved in the process, but online district mapping tools hadn\u2019t been available in prior redistricting years.\r\n\r\nLate in the planning stages of its 2011 efforts, the state\u2019s Redistricting Committee saw a demonstration of Esri\u2019s Redistricting solution and decided to implement it. This would allow citizens in Utah to create and submit their own statewide redistricting plans online.\r\n\r\nWorking with Esri, legislative staff customized the solution slightly to ensure that users drew their redistricting plans according to the same requirements the state legislature had to meet. Shortly after rolling out the public-facing solution, the committee also created a companion website that allowed citizens to explain their plans and comment on those from others.\r\n\r\nAs legislators and analysts drew legislative boundaries for the state using Esri partner Citygate GIS\u2019s AutoBound extension for ArcGIS Desktop, citizens all over Utah were able to go online to create their own maps for congressional, legislative, and state school board districts."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":30912,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"\u201cThis was the perfect citizen engagement opportunity,\u201d said Richard Leadbeater, the industry solutions manager for state government at Esri. \u201cOpening up the process of redistricting to citizens helped people realize that redistricting is hard. They got to see that it\u2019s difficult to start with a specific idea for your city and then come up with a fair, equitable plan for the entire state.\u201d\r\n<h2>Creating New Solutions<\/h2>\r\nCitizens accessed the Esri Redistricting app via a web browser, where, with a user name and password, they could either create new plans or collaborate and edit existing ones.\r\n\r\nTo make a new plan, users first selected census-designated geographic areas of varying sizes, such as counties or groups of neighborhood blocks. Indicators and reports within Esri Redistricting allowed users to visualize the demographic breakdowns in each of their proposed districts and see what would happen if they made changes to their plans.\r\n\r\nIn addition to mapping out their own redistricting solutions, users could create online groups to share and modify their plans. They could also use the companion website to make public comments about the pros and cons of various plans.\r\n\r\nWhen users considered their plans complete, they locked them to prevent any further revisions and submitted them, via the app, directly to the Redistricting Committee for review.\r\n\r\nLegislators also opened up the process to members of the media, since that tends to be where a lot of criticism comes from. Journalists were able to use the same computers and desktop tool that legislators employed to create plans of their own, and legislators were present to answer any questions they had. This way, members of the media were able to get a better understanding of how redistricting works.\r\n<h2>Even More Transparency<\/h2>\r\nA thousand citizens registered to use the site and submitted a total of 323 plans. Of those, 271 met the criteria for completeness, which included having each district be as equal as possible in population count, as well as contiguous and relatively compact.\r\n\r\nThe committee held 17 public meetings throughout the state so legislators could get more public input on redistricting and make the process even more transparent. Citizens who had submitted plans were invited to attend these meetings to discuss their ideas in person.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf someone who created a plan came to a public hearing, we could bring their plan up online and project it on a screen where everyone could see it,\u201d said Jerry Howe, the managing policy analyst for the Utah State Legislature. \u201cThey could then discuss their plan and make arguments for it.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"quote","image":"","text":"There was a plan for the state school board drawn by a member of the public that, with some minor modifications, was adopted.","author_name":"Jerry Howe","author_profession_organization":"Managing Policy Analyst, Utah State Legislature"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<h2>A Smoother Process<\/h2>\r\nEven though there were still disagreements during the 2011 redistricting process, the Esri Redistricting solution provided the public with unparalleled visibility into how it works, and the Redistricting Committee got unprecedented access to what Utah\u2019s citizens wanted. According to Howe, participants not only gained an appreciation of how drawing statewide congressional boundaries works, but legislators also received a variety of options to consider.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe plans <em>[citizens]<\/em> drew were helpful,\u201d Howe commented. \u201cThere was a plan for the state school board drawn by a member of the public that, with some minor modifications, was adopted.\u201d\r\n\r\nHowe believes that public participation in redrawing Utah\u2019s state districts was beneficial to the overall redistricting process.\r\n\r\n\u201cI think the public and the media understood the problem better after using the Esri tool,\u201d he said. \u201cIt eliminated some criticism that was unfounded. Everyone who submitted a complete plan learned that it is really easy to draw the first part of the plan\u2014but the real lesson everyone learned was that it gets really difficult to draw the final districts without harming compactness, city and county boundaries, and communities of interest.\u201d\r\n\r\nFor more information about how Utah employed the Esri Redistricting solution in 2011\u2014and how it plans to use the tool after the next US Census\u2014email Howe at <a href=\"mailto:jdhowe@le.utah.gov\">jdhowe@le.utah.gov<\/a>. Learn more about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/arcgis\/products\/esri-redistricting\/overview\">Esri Redistricting<\/a>."}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Utah Involves Public in Redistricting | Summer 2018 | ArcNews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With the Esri Redistricting solution, the state made the process of revising legislative boundaries much more transparent.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcnews\/utah-involves-public-in-redistricting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Utah Involves Public in Redistricting\" \/>\n<meta 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