Redistricting In New Hampshire: DistrictBuilder Makes It Easy

CONCORD, NH — It is political silly season again with points and counterpoints about redistricting, gerrymandering, and other issues connected to the decennial Census data. And in New Hampshire, it is no different than anywhere else.

But an open-source online tool makes it easy to produce all kinds of political maps — even here in the Granite State.

DistrictBuilder.org, an online website, allows for the mapping of political districts, quickly. The site has been around for about 11 years and was updated this week with all of the 2020 U.S. Census data — meaning anyone can create Congressional districts, state Senate seats, and state representative districts based on nearly any criteria.

The site allows for “competitiveness metrics” — partisan data from both the 2016 and 2020 elections where the user can create districts or use the data to build maps that lean one way or the other. It also allows for “custom population deviation tolerance” or the ability to create maps down to hundreds of votes.

After creating a map, the tool allows the user to evaluate the district for two basic criteria: equal population and contiguity — whether the districts are in physical contact with other parts of the district. There are four other optional evaluations: competitiveness, based on previous elections; compactness or the spread of communities within a Congressional district, as an example, which could indicate gerrymandering; majority-minority; and county splits, too.

“We created DistrictBuilder because as a B corporation, we have a mission to advance civic impact through our work,” Daniel McGlone, the product manager for the site, said. “We designed DistrictBuilder with beginners in mind to create the easiest platform to draw districts while still being able to create legal plans with data all the way down to the block level.”

Since New Hampshire only has two Congressional districts, it is pretty easy to create alternative maps to the current one for the last 10 years, which basically splits the state in two, practically down the middle.

The current configuration of New Hampshire’s two congressional districts. Credit: NationalAtlas.gov

During discussions with readers and others online who are toying with maps, it became pretty apparent how easy it would be to change the districts and, in fact, create better congruency.

As an example, shouldn’t the state’s two largest cities, while on the smaller side compared to other cities in the United States, be in the same district so that the representative could be more focused on urban issues while the state’s second representative could be more briefed on smaller cities, agriculture, and other issues?

There’s a map for that. Keeping all of Rockingham County and half of Hillsborough County, with Manchester and Nashua in the same district, creates two districts with a population deviation 440 people in size, an unheard of, tiny amount. In other words, they are nearly equal in size.

A potential realignment of New Hampshire's two congressional districts. Credit: DistrictBuilder.org

What about a district where the state’s three largest cities were together?

That map was pretty easy, too. All of Hillsborough, Cheshire, and Sullivan counties with all but one community in Merrimack County, Pittsfield, creates two Congressional districts with a population deviation of 1,027 people. Again, a very tiny amount when considering the size of each district is nearly 690,000 people.

A second potential realignment of New Hampshire's two congressional districts. Credit: DistrictBuilder.org

State Senate and House seats will, obviously, take more time, but DistrictBuilder allows for the creation of those maps. Executive Council district seats will take time, too — but we can all agree that the ridiculous upside crescent moon-dragon map for District 2, which was gerrymandered as a safe Democrat seat, needs to be tossed.

The site was founded by the Public Mapping Project — a group that believes “democracy works best when the public is engaged.” The was data produced by the United States Election Project with financial support from a number of foundations. It was built with the assistance of Dr. Michael P. McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida, and Dr. Micah Altman of MIT.

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