The new Congressional Districts map for New York City. Click image to open map. Image Credit: New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment.

The 2020 Census revealed changes in the population of New York State that required changes to the state’s districting at federal and state levels. After multiple legal challenges to the proposed redistricting maps, new Congressional, State Senate and State Assembly maps have been finalized. As a result of the ongoing challenges, New Yorkers will vote in two primaries this summer ahead of the general election in November.  (more…)

An example of the redistricting map from the 2012-2013 Districting Commission that outlines changes to district map boundaries. The new Commission will prepare the same ahead of the next Council elections in 2023. Image Credit: NYC Districting Commission.

The Commission will help with the redesign of the City Council district boundaries. On March 7, 2022, Mayor Eric Adams announced his seven appointees to the New York City Districting Commission. The Commission is responsible for redrawing council district boundaries as required every ten years by the City Charter following the national census. The redistricting helps the City Council reflect changes in demographics and population.  (more…)

Prison gerrymandering manipulates the boundaries of electoral districts by inflating the districts with incarcerated individuals who have no real relationship to the districts where the prisons are located. Incarcerated individuals in New York are not allowed to vote. As a result, in districts with prisons and large prison populations the votes of the voters who can vote become more powerful compared to the vote of the voters in districts without a prison population. At the same time, the districts which include the actual residences and homes of the incarcerated individuals have less political representation. This dilutes their political influence as those districts become underrepresented compared with districts with incarcerated persons. (more…)

Jeffrey Wice, Adjunct Professor and Senior Fellow.

According to a new report released on December 22, 2020 by Election Data Services, Inc. (EDS), New York State could lose up to two congressional districts after the official state population totals are announced in January. (more…)

Credit: CityLaw

New York State in 2021 must redraw the State’s senate, assembly and congressional districts. The process will be different from the process used to draw legislative and congressional district lines in the past. Previously, the State legislature redrew the districts for its own members and for the State’s congressional members.  After years of efforts to reform a process seen as too self-interested, New York State voters in 2014 approved an amendment to the State constitution that created a  new Redistricting Commission that will propose new district lines to the legislature. The legislature still gets the last word, but the commission process opens the redistricting process up, provides an outside entity to act as the initial proposer, and adds guidelines for map design for fairness. (more…)