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”.
The decision stunned “DD” – an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Alabama named Daniel DiDonato – who learned his map had been selected as he was preparing to leave for his 9.30am introduction to political science class.
“I was absolutely surprised,” he said in an interview. “Now, nearly 300,000 Alabamians will be voting under new district lines that I drew up at two in the morning in a dorm, a cramped dorm study room.”
While it would be better if his map had resulted in even stronger Black representation, he appears to have been the only one who followed the assignment, which was to remedy the original racism with the fewest changes to the districts. And he paid attention to proportions so that a voter in any district has an equal fraction of representation.
Kind of burying the lede, but really glad you posted this:
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.”
He used a free online software, Dave’s Redistricting App, to draw the lines. He had begun playing around with it about a year ago, amid a budding fascination with redistricting. As he drew the maps late into the night fueled by soda but no caffeine, he turned off racial and partisan data, seeking to ensure that the new districts he drew were equal in population and made as few changes as possible to the one Republicans had adopted.
Doesn’t matter, our only choices are BlueMAGA or RedMAGA
A
teenageralgorithmSo you’re saying everyone else who used the same tool got identical results to his plan?
He had to choose what to start with and what numbers to use. He’s bad ass.
He did it at 2am and in his underpants, though, so the output is totally different than if he’d been wearing a three piece suit and compiling it during normal business hours.
So he deserves the salary of a senior dev, not a business analyst?
Does that make it bad?
It makes the headline descriptive, even relative to the content of the piece.
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.
I think it would be a good thing to provide people with access to mapping software that can plan redistricting in a fair way, or expose the way someone is doing it unfairly with evidence.
Since the teenager did the work of assembling the info, I think the headline is fine. Do I have to give credit to a calculator because I suck at math?
mapping software that can plan redistricting in a fair way
I mean, fairness is heavily predicated on your end goals. Even then, while I find the software fascinating and I’m glad it exists, I don’t see a huge strategic benefit in people wishcasting districts their states won’t let them have.
The other big lead-bury on this headline is the degree to which the courts have been wrangling over district maps for decades. This map is just the latest selected to rebalance Alabama and there’s little reason to believe it will stick
Well, there shouldn’t be districts anyway. It should just all be popular vote. But that’s a whole other topic.
