Spatiality

Just three months after the US District Court approved the redistricted Congressional districts for New York, the state is holding primary elections for Republican and Democratic candidates for Congress and US Senate.

In an effort to help analysts understand the voting patterns for the primary and general elections for Congress in New York, our Center for Urban Research at the CUNY Graduate Center has updated a map of Congressional districts to highlight the differences between eligible voters by district and overall population counts.  The map is accessible at www.urbanresearchmaps.org/nycongress2012/map.html

Among other things, our new map displays the “citizen voting age population” (CVAP) estimates for each district as well as overall population counts.  When you visit the map, move your mouse over each district to display total population counts by race/ethnicity along with “citizen voting age population” (CVAP) estimates.   We also have a brief analysis of CVAP estimates compared with total population for each district.

In many Congressional districts, especially in New York City, news reports have noted the changing demographics, partly due to population shifts but also due to new boundaries that are the result of redistricting.  Districts that may once have had a predominantly Black population, for example, may now have a more mixed population.

But overall race and ethnicity population counts only tell part of the story.  Population data from the decennial 2010 Census include all residents — citizens as well as recent immigrants who may not yet be citizens, and people who are of voting age (18 or older) as well as children.  In some cases, the eligible voting population has a much different racial and ethnic profile than the overall population.

Filed under: Cartography, Data Tagged: | Cartography, Census, online maps, redistricting