Redistricter: The best tool for visualizing the data that shapes America

Redistricter may be the single best political data vis tool for casual users out there. The depth of the data it offers on everything from forecasted future swings to statewide referenda is unparalleled. It provides a far more advanced library of data to play around with than Dave's Redistricting but is also slightly less user-friendly. In the next few years, I can easily see it surging in popularity and combining the best features of DRA and QGIS while being far more accessible than QGIS is for beginners. As a preliminary note, there may be some missing features I listed that do exist, but if they do, I must have completely missed them. My favorite features: detailed information on just about every census metric imaginable (race, income, mode of transportation, housing prices, marital status, commute time, origin by birthplace), visually appealing maps, easily downloadable geojson files, loads of base map options, custom election builder/shifter, MULTISTATE MAPS!!!!!!!! Missing features: AN UNDO BUTTON, the ability to see district numbers in brackets when hovering over precincts without turning on labels/basic colors, ability to renumber districts after creating them (or make them named/letter-based rather than numbered), easy importation from DRA, the 2020 Colorado gray wolf referendum, custom landmarks, custom district colors on the "basic colors" set (i.e. independent of election results), ability to publish maps or share public links, an automatic tool to flag noncontiguous districts, the ability to create MMDs of varying sizes, automatic calculation of efficiency gaps, a tool to calculate partisan lean relative to the statewide result, a tool to reassign stray precincts, municipal maps can only go down to the county level, the ability to make multi-county municipal maps, "unassigned" being part of the district list Other suggestions/potential features: an incumbent address setting based on FEC data (only down to the precinct or town level to protect elected officials' privacy); a functional contiguity test using roads, bridges, and lakes/nature preserves, the ability to share maps to non-subscribers on view only Overall, it's clear that an extraordinary amount of work went into the tool's creation. There are some DRA tools Redistricter lacks and vice versa, but I would argue that the comprehensiveness of data Redistricter offers makes it the better tool overall. While the most notable features are the abundance of data and ability to do multistate maps, the custom election builder is the icing on the cake. I would love to see a bit more ease of transfer from DRA since that's where many first-time users are coming from and a lot of imported json files simply don't load when they are brought over. I would highly encourage anyone who's thinking of switching over to Redistricter to make the splurge—there are so many mapmaking features that are simply impossible to execute with other GIS/redistricting software tools.

Maker

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My name is Colin Miller and I was a student at the University of Portland studying computer science with an interest in politics, data, and maps. I made Redistricter as a passion project originally but it took off far faster than expected after I launched it and I've decided to drop out and work on it full time. I'm excited to hear what everyone here at Product Hunt has to say about Redistricter!

3yr ago