The Solution: People, Not Politics

In 2011, each state will redraw its boundaries for state and congressional districts based on the new 2010 census data. It’s our hope that new criteria for redrawing district lines can help create a system that is fair, sensible, easy to understand and that, most importantly, serves the voters and not the legislators.

Criteria
A fair and effective redistricting plan will use community-focused criteria to represent Indiana’s constituents. By concentrating on community, such a plan would redraw lines through a new system designed to:

• Keep communities of interest together
  This criterion seeks to avoid unnecessary division of voters who share the same community and often the same priorities, views and motivations.

• Create more compact and geographically uniform districts
  More than an aesthetic preference, this action would improve government accessibility and raise constituents’ awareness of their district and its distinct, local issues of concern.

• Reduce voters' confusion about who represents them by following already existing political boundaries such as county and township lines

• Not use any political data including incumbent addresses for partisan reasons
  Maps created without the benefit of political data will be inherently more fair and less likely to contribute to gerrymandering and other types of voter manipulation.

• "Nest” two house districts under the existing lines of a senate district
  This would result in even more accountability and further lessen confusion about who represents you.

VIDEO: Secretary Rokita outlines the solution

So what would this look like? See for yourself how our criteria would have made a difference in drawing our maps in 2001 – and how you can help make a difference in the re-drawing of our 2011 maps. Click here to view our conceptual maps using year 2000 census data.

NEXT: Concept maps