Redistricting Committee testimony and making your own maps
September is packed full of Redistricting Committee meetings, and North Dakota Voters First is encouraging you to stay engaged with the 2021 legislative districting process.
As you may know, there is a Redistricting Committee meeting now scheduled in Fargo for 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 8 at the Hilton Garden Inn. You can attend this meeting in person or view it online. Click here for the agenda.
If you’d like to testify in front of the Redistricting Committee, there are two ways to do so. First, you can attend in person. Click here for the agenda. The committee will take public comment during the segments on the agenda that say “comments by interested persons.” You’ll want to show up early to testify (at least an hour), because the agenda can move fast. Let the committee know you’re there to testify. Also, please be sure to bring 20 copies of your testimony to the meeting. The copies will be distributed to legislators on the committee and also to the employees of Legislative Council. The other option for testimony is speaking online via video streaming. Please contact the chairman of the Redistricting Committee, Rep. Bill Devlin (R-Finley), to get scheduled for virtual testimony. His email address is bdevlin@nd.gov.
If you do testify, it’s important to discuss local issues and impacts regarding legislative districting. This includes topics such as communities of interest, neighborhoods, school boundaries, city and county lines, cultural interests of ethnic groups, and other similar items. It’s important that North Dakotans receive a fair legislative map for the next 10 years. Together, we can help prevent gerrymandering in North Dakota!
Speaking of maps… while legislators are currently working on redrawing our legislative maps, you can also be a part of this process! You can create district maps for free using Dave’s Redistricting. This map-making tool already has data from the 2020 Census loaded, and will show you how far off the districts are from the ideal population size. It’s easy to use, and, if you like maps, you’ll enjoy this website!
To start your own map, go to Dave’s Redistricting, select North Dakota, click on the state legislative map, and then select the paint brush to start editing. Statistics and analytics about your map and districts are updated as you make changes. When you are done, you can download your map from Dave’s Redistricting, and upload it to planscore.org to evaluate the fairness of the map. After that, you can submit it to the Redistricting Committee. You have the power to make sure folks across North Dakota are well represented for the next decade!
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