Public Mapping Project

The project’s goal is for the public to have access to the same information that legislators or other redistricting authorities use when determining U.S. Congressional and other legislative maps. ³

Background

The Public Mapping Project is an initiative that wants to make it possible for the public to draw the boundaries of U.S. Congressional and legislative districts.  ⁴

In 2010, professors Michael McDonald and Micah Altman wrote about the principles of the Public Mapping Project advisory board in both the Washington Post and the Duke Journal of Constitutional Law and Public Policy. ¹

The Public Mapping Project developed District Builder, an open-source software redistricting application. It is designed to give the public an easy-to-use online mapping tools to draw legislative maps so that citizens have access to the same information as legislators in drawing congressional maps. ²

The project claims that the drawing of electoral districts is among the least transparent processes in government. ⁴ The project asserts redistricting authorities maintain their power by obstructing public participation. ⁴

McDonald and Altman wrote in their book, How Public Participation Can Revolutionize Redistricting, that they hope public knowledge by voters and the media will force accountability for legislators or other redistricting authorities who draw legislative maps. ³ The project contends that the public-drawn maps would be used as a yardstick by which to compare against a redistricting authority’s plan. ⁴

The project supports and provides data and software to Draw the Lines PA, a Pennsylvania redistricting advocacy group. ⁴

Personnel

Michael McDonald and Micah Altman are the principal investigators for the Public Mapping Project. ⁵

McDonald is an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida. ²

McDonald is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and was previously an associate professor at George Mason University. ⁴

Altman is the director of research and head of the program on information science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  ² He was a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a senior research scientist at Harvard University. ^{1  5}

Tyler Gilcrest is the project manager for the Azavea Corporation, the software development partner of the Public Mapping Project, ⁶ a geospatial technology corporation established in 2001. ⁵

Donors

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation donated $1.2 million to the Public Mapping Project specifically to support the District Builder app, as well as to support more data collection to prepare for the 2020 redistricting cycle. ⁴

The Public Mapping Project has also received grants from the Joyce Foundation, the William Penn Foundation, Amazon, and the Judy Ford Wason Center at Christopher Newport University. ^{5  4}