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cbabe

(6,010 posts) Sun Nov 30, 2025, 11:24 AM Sunday

A teenager redrew the Alabama voting map - and it's now state law

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/30/alabama-teenager-election-map-voting-rights

A teenager redrew the Alabama voting map – and it’s now state law

Daniel DiDonato, 18, drafted new state senate districts at home on free software – and a judge picked his map ahead of professionals’ efforts to remedy voting rights violations

Sam Levine in New York
Sun 30 Nov 2025 11.00 EST

Earlier this month, after years of litigation, a federal judge in Alabama ordered a new state senate map. In a surprising decision, the map she chose wasn’t one drafted by a court-appointed special master and his expert cartographer, but rather one that had been submitted by an anonymous member of the public, known only by their initials, “DD”.

…

DiDonato’s success underscores how the wide availability of redistricting data and mapping software has transformed mapmaking from something once reserved for supercomputers and backrooms to an activity that anyone can participate in. It’s a transformation that has allowed for observers to immediately scrutinize maps for partisanship or signs of racial discrimination.

The widespread availability of political data tools has created an online community – Election Twitter – where political, data and mapmaking junkies will create and share maps and forecasts. DiDonato said he “definitely” considered himself a member.

“You have a whole bunch of these kids who are snippy and savvy and know about the Voting Rights Act, Section 2 of the VRA,” said Chaz Nuttycombe, 26, who developed an impressive record forecasting state legislative races while a student at Virginia Tech and has since founded State Navigate, a non-profit focused on state legislatures. “I’ve seen maps put together by special masters that I disagree with, and I’ve seen kids on Election Twitter put forward better maps for equivalent states and districts than those special masters.”

… more …

4 replies

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Highlight:

A teenager redrew the Alabama voting map - and it's now state law (Original Post) cbabe Sunday OP

Send that kid to Texas, the people here in charge can't find their ass with both hands. walkingman Sunday #1

votes for the House should no longer be geographic lapfog_1 Sunday #2

I have been thinking along those same lines for a while now ms liberty Sunday #4

Most Prisoners Can't Vote, But They're Still Counted In Voting Districts cbabe Sunday #3

walkingman

(10,197 posts)

1. Send that kid to Texas, the people here in charge can't find their ass with both hands.

Reply to cbabe (Original post)

Sun Nov 30, 2025, 11:29 AM

Sunday

lapfog_1

(31,507 posts)

2. votes for the House should no longer be geographic

Reply to cbabe (Original post)

Sun Nov 30, 2025, 11:47 AM

Sunday

Unless we expand the House to be more representative ( i.e. one House member for every 100,000 or 150,000 voters )... I propose that the House delegations for a state be based on percentage of state wide popular vote. Basically all candidates run for the N seats available, voters get to choose 1 candidate. when the votes are tallied up, the N top vote recipients are elected. Your congressperson is the one you voted for, should they be in the top N. If your candidate doesn't make the cut, then you get to pick your congressperson out of the N that won.

This will lead to fair representation in the House of people from a state. It would end 1 party rule at the state congressional delegation ( state house and county and city elections would still be geographically determined for obvious reasons ).

The republicans, by way of having more small population states, have a very unfair advantage in the Senate and in the electoral college. But at least the House would likely move more to the majority side... and I think it would encourage more minority (political minority) voters to turn out on election day in every state.

Just a thought.

Where I live really doesn't much affect things now... I am not tied to the land, my neighbors, or my house really.

ms liberty

(10,857 posts)

4. I have been thinking along those same lines for a while now

Reply to lapfog_1 (Reply #2)

Sun Nov 30, 2025, 12:12 PM

Sunday

cbabe

(6,010 posts)

3. Most Prisoners Can't Vote, But They're Still Counted In Voting Districts

Reply to cbabe (Original post)

Sun Nov 30, 2025, 12:00 PM

Sunday

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/22/1039643346/redistricting-prison-gerrymandering-definition-census-congressional-legislative

Most Prisoners Can't Vote, But They're Still Counted In Voting Districts

UPDATED SEPTEMBER 26, 20217:01 AM ET
HEARD ON ALL THINGS CONSIDERED

Prisoners are among the country's least powerful people. But every 10 years, where they're counted in census numbers can shift political power in the United States.

And as mapmakers turn last year's census tallies of incarcerated people and other U.S. residents into the next decade's voting districts, 11 states are trying to block what critics call "prison gerrymandering."

That little-known practice involves determining the areas elected officials represent with census numbers that count prisoners as residents of where they are incarcerated. With those tallies, some redistricting officials have created local voting districts filled mostly with people who are locked behind bars and, in most states, cannot vote.

There's a growing movement, though, to modify those census numbers before they're used for redistricting — by reallocating counts of incarcerated people to where they last lived before they were imprisoned.

… more …

(States who passed laws disallowing this practice.)

(So are detained immigrants counted in prison census? Ironic if noncitizens are rigging the vote.

Also reason magats are building more mega detention camps?)

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