Welcome to the Redistricting Research Site of the Institute of Governmental Studies

Research on redistricting has long been a tradition at the Institute (IGS). Scholars like former directors Eugene C. Lee and Bruce E. Cain of IGS both believed in hands-on approaches to redistricting research. Out of this tradition, a number of notable scholars, studies and projects have emerged over the past decades. Since 1993, for example, the IGS has hosted the Statewide Database, the redistricting database for the State of California. In 2005, researchers at IGS began a multi-institutional collaboration funded by the JEHT foundation, to build redistricting datasets for all fifty states, to be able to analyze districts before and after the 2000 round of redistricting. Most recently, Bruce Cain and Karin Mac Donald received a grant from the James Irvine Foundation to study the impact that competition as a redistricting criterion may have on the drawing of legislative and congressional seats in California. This study was followed by an evaluation of transparency requirements present in rules and regulations governing redistricting in the fifty states.

From this page, we link to the latter two reports, to maps that were created and analyzed, and summary statistics. All of our data are downloadable and public. We appreciate feed-back! Please email Karin Mac Donald with questions and comments. As we continue to release studies, we will upload them to this page.

As mentioned above, the Institute is home to the Statewide Database, where electoral data merged to census data can be downloaded for statistical analysis and in geographic information system (GIS) formats. The database site also contains numerous court cases and articles about redistricting, along with custom reports that were developed for various projects. Another resource at IGS is the library's redistricting resource site, which includes links to the redistricting archives prior to 1990.

Last updated August 8th, 2007