This week– New York Redistricting Reform Needed; Federal Court Action in NYC Mayoral Case; N.Y. Attorney General Preclearance Activity; High Net Undercount of Young Black Children in 2020 Census; Citizenship Question Would Undermine Census Count
by Jeff Wice and Alexis Marking
REDISTRICTING
N.Y. State Redistricting Reform Needed
New York State’s redistricting process following the 2020 Census failed to live up to the reforms envisioned by voters who endorsed the 2014 constitutional changes. Instead, the redistricting process proved unworkable, missed constitutional deadlines, and resulted in judicially imposed districts. To avoid the pitfalls of the 2020 process, the time to fix the state’s redistricting process should begin with state legislators elected to serve in the 2025-2026 legislature, well before the 2030 redistricting cycle gets underway.
In 2014, New York voters approved an amendment to the state constitution to create a new process for congressional and state legislative redistricting. The reforms sought to eliminate the Legislature’s exclusive control over redistricting that had resulted in politically motivated and unfairly gerrymandered districts. The 2014 constitutional amendment created a new bipartisan advisory commission, the Independent Redistricting Commission (“Commission”). The amendment empowered the Commission to hold public hearings and draw maps of new election district lines and to submit those maps for either approval or redrawing by the Legislature.
The proponents of the 2014 constitutional amendment argued that the new redistricting process would make redistricting transparent, encourage public input, and discourage political and racial gerrymandering. The constitutional amendment, however, included substantive and procedural inadequacies and compromises that led to the drawn-out, litigation-filled cacophony of the past two-and-a-half years.
The now four-year record of confusion and litigation makes clear that the process created by the 2014 amendment was flawed and is in need of substantive reforms. The next redistricting cycle will follow the 2030 Census and is now just a short six years away. Without reform, New York will likely end up with the same sort of chaotic and unsatisfactory redistricting process it experienced following the 2020 census.
To amend the state constitution, an identical amendment must be approved by two successively elected state legislatures before being submitted to the state’s voters for approval. Since a new amendment should be in place before 2029, the legislatures elected no later than in 2024 and 2026 must develop and approve an amendment so it can be approved by voters in the November 2028 election or sooner. Voter consideration by 2027 would enable a new process to get underway in a much more orderly manner than approval too close to 2030. Discussion is already underway to enact a new redistricting process and new proposals should be considered by the Legislature by next year.
It’s important that the redistricting reform effort gets well underway- and a new amendment be approved- by the current state legislature so that any resulting amendment to reform the current process be in place for the legislature elected in 2026 to consider and for the voters to approve by 2027.
Future updates will cover what went wrong after 2020 and recommendations on how to create a better process. In the meantime, the clock is ticking.
LITIGATION
Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn): Walden v. Kosinski et al. (NYC Mayoral Race)
On April 25th, the federal district court denied the defendants’ request for a pre-motion conference in this case over using the name “independence” as a political party name. Counsel for N.Y.C. Mayoral candidate Jim Walden had responded to the request by stating that he would amend the complaint (following a decision on his appeal), so the Court ruled the defendants’ request moot. Walden shall file the amended complaint within fourteen days from receiving a decision on his appeal.
VOTING RIGHTS ACT PRECLEARANCE
N.Y. Attorney General’s Office Preclearance Updates
Submission 321- Westchester County Board of Elections- election day poll site locations- under review
Submission 261- Suffolk County Board of Elections-election day poll site locations- granted
Submission 241- N.Y.C. Board of Elections- early voting and election day poll site locations- under review
Submission 401- N.Y.C. Board of Elections- early voting poll site locations- under emergency review
All submissions can be viewed at: https://nyvra-portal.ag.ny.gov/
CENSUS
Analysis Shows High Net Undercount of Young Black Children in 2020 Census
On March 6th, the Census Bureau released the Modified Age & Race Census Files (MARC). As described by the Bureau, “These files provide data from the 2020 Census in race categories that align with those used in vital records and administrative data (which may not include “Some Other Race”) and are consistent with those used in the Population Estimates Program.” Upon this release, an analysis was conducted to calculate the 2020 Census coverage rates for young Black children between the ages of 0 and 4 years old.
According to Count All Kids, “Census data show that historically young children, particularly Black and Hispanic young children, have had very high net undercounts in the U.S. Census.” In the 2010 Census, the net undercount for young “Black Alone” (“children for whom only Black or African American race category was selected”) children between the ages of 0 and 4 years old was 4.4 percent. For “Black Alone” or “in Combination” children (“children for whom Black or African American race category was selected along with at least one other race category”) of the same age range, the undercount was 6.3 percent. The research cites other analyses, which show that the census coverage of the Black population also worsened between 2010 and 2020.
Based on this analysis, there was a net undercount of 190,000 young “Black Alone” children in the 2020 Census and a net undercount rate of 6.2 percent. There was a net undercount of 283,000 “Black Alone” or “in Combination” children in the 2020 Census and a net undercount rate of 7.2 percent. For a point of comparison, the coverage rate for the total population in the 2020 Census was -0.2 percent.
Overall, the coverage rate for the “Black Alone” category worsened by 1.8 percent between 2010 and 2020, while the “Black Alone” or “In Combination” category worsened by 0.9 percent. For both groups, “the net undercount for young children is more than twice that of the overall Black population.” As stated in the analysis, “these results indicate getting an accurate count of young Black children in the 2030 Census should be high priority.”
Study Shows Census Citizenship Question Would Likely Undermine Census Count
According to a recent peer-reviewed study, adding a citizenship question to U.S. Census forms would likely “undermine the accuracy” of U.S. population counts.
These findings, published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, analyzed the effect of the citizenship question on census participation by comparing the results of a “national experiment” the Census Bureau conducted in 2019 with the results of a “simulated census involving administrative records from government and third-party sources.”
The research found that the gap between the self-response rate for households “with only U.S.-born people who identify as white and not Hispanic” and the rate for households with “at least one person who is likely without legal status” widens by more than two percentage points.
The effect of this question was most evident in the lower response rates for households with at least one U.S.-born Latino, non-U.S. citizen, or “naturalized U.S. citizen who was born outside Latin America.” Additionally, a citizenship question would likely cause more instances where a participant omitted one or more people when reporting the residents of their address.
Many of these populations are historically underrepresented in census counts already. As stated by the researchers, “This suggests that adding a sensitive question to a survey increases the difficulty of obtaining high-quality data about the subpopulations most sensitive to the question. Data quality may suffer even if large investments are made to ameliorate these challenges.”
INSTITUTE RESOURCES
The New York Elections, Census and Redistricting Institute has archived many resources for the public to view on our Digital Commons Page.
Our Redistricting Resources page contains resources on the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act. You can access the page
here: https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/redistricting_resources/
Archived Updates can be accessed
here: https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/redistricting_roundtable_updates/
Please share this weekly update with your colleagues. To be added to the mailing list, please contact Jeffrey.wice@nyls.edu
The N.Y. Elections, Census & Redistricting Institute is supported by grants from the New York Community Trust, New York Census Equity Fund and the New York City Council. This report was prepared by Jeff Wice and Alexis Marking.