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When will local

redistricting happen in
Georgia and how to be a
redistricting watchdog

The Georgia Congressional District map, here in

its 2020 con7guration, could look considerably
different when the Georgia General Assembly —
currently controlled by Republicans — conducts
its once-per-decade redrawing of the map in
2021.
GEORGIA GENERAL ASSEMBLY

STEPHEN FOWLER, DAVID ARMSTRONG

AND ISAIAH PORITZ | GPB NEWS | 8:39 am
EDT April 28, 2021

Later this year, Georgia’s General Assembly

will convene for a special session to redraw
the boundaries of the state’s legislative
and congressional districts based on data
from the 2020 census.

While U.S. Census delays have pushed

back the timeline for the once-a-decade
redistricting process, it’s still possible to
get an idea of what changes could — and
should — be made to our political maps.

Redistricting will impact every Georgian's

life, from who their representatives are to
who controls state government and
Congress. And it's not just Georgia that has
to redraw its boundaries that will shape the
next 10 years. We are keeping an eye on it
all, and want to hear from you about your
concerns and what you learn.

The !rst census results were released April

26. Those results determine, based on
population, each state’s representation in
Congress and the Electoral College. States
will either gain, lose or keep the same
number of representatives. Georgia
retained its current allotment of 14
congressional seats.

More: Georgia will not gain or lose

congressional seats following 2020
Census

Full census !gures are expected to be

delivered to the states by Sept. 30. A"er
that, the governor will call a special
session for lawmakers to return to the
Capitol and draw lines for the state House
and Senate districts, as well as the state’s
congressional districts.

This will be the !rst redistricting cycle in

which maps don’t have to be approved by
the federal government, following the 2013
Shelby v. Holder decision that ended
preclearance requirements for Georgia and
other states with a history of racially
discriminatory voting changes.

For the next several months, the Georgia

News Lab and GPB News will bring you
data and stories about Georgia’s
demographic and political changes over
the past decade — before !nal numbers
and maps are created. This reporting
recipe will outline what data we are using,
provide highlights of the redistricting
process and explain what to expect from
your lawmakers.

WHY IT MATTERS

Redistricting has wide-ranging

implications for individuals, for elected
o#cials and for the country as a whole. For
voters, it helps determine who will
represent them and their neighborhood.
For politicians, it can mean the di$erence
between easy reelection and being voted
out of o#ce.

More broadly, changing a district’s

boundaries — and its voters — can alter the
political direction of that district, and of an
entire legislative body.

Take the U.S. House, for example.

Democrats currently control the chamber
by just six votes. In Republican-controlled
states, redistricting could result in
Democrats in competitive districts being
drawn into more GOP-friendly boundaries,
making it easier to %ip the chamber.

In Georgia, suburban Atlanta’s 6th and 7th

Congressional districts have recently
turned Democratic blue a"er decades of
being reliably red Republican strongholds.
But lawmakers could change their
boundaries this year so Democratic Reps.
Lucy McBath and Carolyn Bourdeaux face
a di$erent, more conservative electorate in
2022.

When lines are drawn to gain political

advantage, known as gerrymandering,
voters’ voices can be diluted. Issues they
care about may not be fully represented.
Gerrymandering can also lead to an
increase in the number of noncompetitive
races and increase political
factionalization. Redistricting is especially
fraught in Georgia this time around, given
the state’s growing population and
increasingly competitive politics.

KNOW THE PROCESS

Drawing districts that contain an equal

number of people sounds like a simple
process but in fact, it can be extremely
complicated. There are a lot of moving
parts and considerations. Before trying to
determine what districts might look like, it
is important to know how the process is
supposed to work — and how it sometimes
doesn’t.

Fortunately, there are many good guides

available. We compiled a list of readings
and resources here:
https://bit.ly/3nxBNBt. They cover
everything from basic introductions to
detailed analyses of the considerations
involved in the upcoming round of
mapmaking.

We’ve also included resources on the

redistricting process in Georgia, the
legislative committees that will draw the
maps, new legal considerations in this
round of redistricting, the ins and outs of
gerrymandering, and e$orts by some
states to reduce the political in%uence on
the process.

It is also helpful to know how the process

has played out in past cycles, providing
context for what is to come. In 2001, for
example, Democrats were on their way out
of favor and drew lines that “pushed the
envelope,” according to University of
Georgia professor Charles Bullock, and
were eventually struck down in court.

In 2011, Republicans were in charge.

“Georgia Republicans were in good shape,”

Bullock said. “If you look at the maps,
they’re not the extraordinary shapes that
Democrats resorted [to] in 2001 when they
were desperately trying to hold onto
power.”

You can also check records of past

redistricting committee sessions. For
Georgia, minutes (and videos) of past
House redistricting committee meetings
are archived here. Senate meetings are
archived here.

Practically speaking, the !nal plans the

legislature passes will consist of lists of
names and numbers corresponding to
what the Census Bureau calls Voting
Tabulation Districts (VTDs) and Census
blocks.

Census blocks are the smallest possible

geographic subdivision used to create
legislative districts and are bounded by
visible things such as roads and rivers and
nonvisible things such as property lines
and city limits. These are the building
blocks used to achieve the level of
precision needed for proportional maps.
VTDs are like election precincts within
each county.

WHAT’S DIFFERENT THIS TIME?

Since the last round of redistricting in 2011,

a pair of Supreme Court decisions have
lowered some of the guardrails around how
maps are drawn. In 2013, the court struck
down a provision of the 1965 Voting
Rights Act that required required Georgia
and 15 other states with a history of voting
discrimination to receive approval from the
U.S. Justice Department before making
any change that would a$ect voting,
including redrawing district maps. In a 5-4
decision, the court ruled that the
requirement was excessive and no longer
necessary.

The 2021 redistricting will be the !rst full

cycle since the implementation of the
Voting Rights Act that Georgia and other
previously covered jurisdictions will not be
required to submit maps to the Justice
Department for preapproval.

The 2021 redistricting cycle will also be the

!rst since another 5-4 Supreme Court
decision in 2019 determined that federal
courts do not have jurisdiction over claims
of partisan gerrymandering. As a result,
maps can now only be challenged on the
basis of unfair political districts in state
court, where there is little legal precedent.

Georgia is also a lot di$erent politically

than it was in the last two redistricting
cycles, as evidenced by a bitterly contested
presidential election that saw Democrats
narrowly edge out a victory and runo$
races in which they %ipped both U.S.
Senate seats. In the state House,
Republicans have a relatively comfortable
majority of 103 seats to Democrats’ 77,
though there are a handful of suburban
seats that could be vulnerable in upcoming
elections due to blue-leaning demographic
shi"s. In the state Senate, Republicans
hold 34 of the 56 seats with a handful of
metro Atlanta districts that saw close races
for incumbents.

Another consideration this time is that the

census was conducted during the
coronavirus pandemic, which caused
delays to the data collection process and
may have resulted in lower — or higher —
response rates than in past counts, as well
as other anomalies. Still, these are the
numbers that will be used for redistricting.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

It will be a while yet before lawmakers

actually start debating new maps, but
there are several things you, as a citizen,
can be thinking about.

First, learn who is responsible for

redistricting in your state and how the
process is supposed to work. Does the
legislature draw the maps, as in Georgia?
Or are they drawn by an independent
commission? The National Conference of
State Legislatures has a good set of links
about processes, terminology, the law and
data here.

In Georgia, the primary law governing

redistricting is the state constitution. It
establishes that the state legislature
draws the maps and the governor can veto
the plan. Unlike other states, Georgia does
not set a deadline for when the process
must be complete.

The redistricting process is further

regulated by state code (O.C.G.A. § 28-1-1,
28-2-1 and 28-2-2), which says there shall
be 180 House districts and 56 Senate
districts.

Find out what guidance mapmakers will

follow in drawing new districts. A guide to
redistricting criteria by state is here. In
Georgia, the state constitution requires
only that state legislative districts be
contiguous. There are no speci!ed
requirements for congressional districts,
but in 2011 Georgia’s congressional
districts were drawn to be plus or minus
one person from the ideal district size.

In 2011, the House and

Senate redistricting committees drew up
guidelines that also took into account
things like compactness, communities of
interest, preservation of existing political
subdivisions and avoiding districts that
would set up contests between
incumbents, a practice known as pairing.

In 2001, when Democrats controlled the

process, they drew maps that pitted 24
Republican senators against each other,
The Atlanta Journal-
Constitution reported. In the House, the
Democrats paired 37 of 74 Republican
candidates, as well as nine Democrats and
an independent.

In 2011, when Republicans drew the maps

for the !rst time, they paired 20
incumbents. The races featured six sets of
Democrats facing o$ against one another
and four sets of Republicans.

DETERMINING WHO WILL

DRAW THE MAPS

In Georgia, the maps are drawn by the

Legislature. The current members of the
House Legislative & Congressional
Reapportionment committee are here. The
members of the Senate Reapportionment
and Redistricting committee are here.

Do the people drawing the maps have a

personal or partisan interest in the
outcome? In Georgia, they do. Several
members of both committees represent
highly competitive districts. Plus, the
in%uence of the rapidly changing
demographics and population shi"s in the
state could be diluted for the next decade,
depending on how lines are drawn.

Some members of both committees,

particularly in the Senate, actively
promoted false claims of widespread
fraud in the 2020 presidential election and
engaged in e$orts to overturn the outcome,
as well.

There will likely be several public hearings

about proposed changes, where lawmakers
can hear feedback from citizens about
redistricting.

When the special session is called, the

legislative redistricting committee
meetings will be open to the public as well
as streamed online.

In the meantime, there are sites such as

Dave’s Redistricting App that allow you to
take a crack at creating your own maps
using current data estimates.

FIND THE DATA

It will be impossible to know exactly how

many people are in each geographic
subdivision used to draw district maps
until the census releases o#cial numbers.
Even a"er the apportionment numbers
were released, we only know the ideal size
for each district.

In the meantime, there are some data

sources that can provide a rough
approximation of population trends.

The data we are using are compiled from

two sets of numbers. The !rst is the
Census Bureau’s American Community
Survey (ACS) !ve-year population data
broken down by state legislative and
congressional districts from 2012, the year
of the !rst election conducted on the maps
drawn in 2011. The second set is the same
survey from 2019, the most recent year
that contains the same congressional, state
House and Senate-level data as the 2012
records.

It is important to note that these are

estimates that could di$er signi!cantly
from the eventual census !gures because
of atypical response rates during the
pandemic. But for now, they are the best
available numbers.

You can access the tables yourself at

data.census.gov. Here’s where we found
2012 data for the state House, and here are
the state Senate numbers. They include the
Race and Ethnicity data from Census table
B02001, with “All State Legislative
Districts” selected as the geography.

For the 2019 data, the state House and

state Senate tables were accessed using
the same parameters.

From 2012 to 2019, the average estimated

size of Georgia’s 14 congressional districts
swelled by about 49,000 people to
743,000, according to the ACS data. The 56
state Senate districts have grown by about
12,300 people to 185,000. And Georgia’s
180 state House districts each contain
about 4,000 additional people, or almost
58,000 on average.

Here are two spreadsheets, one for the

House and one for the Senate, that show
demographic and population changes for
each district from 2012-2019, based on the
ACS data. In the coming weeks, we will
add in voter registration statistics by
district, county and precinct — a much
better (but still imprecise) source of
information about changes. Remember,
redistricting in Georgia is done based on
population, not voters — and not everyone
eligible to vote is registered.

SHARE WHAT YOU FIND

GPB wants to know what you’ve found. Do

you work in economic development and
have insight into why your district or