October 25 - Legislative Reapportionment Commission Certifies U.S. Census Data Sets As Usable
Monday, October 25, 2021 | Room 8E-B East Wing, Harrisburg, PA
At its October 25 meeting, the Legislative Reapportionment Commission approved Resolution 6A, which certified 2021-10-14 LRC Data Release No. 2 (with prisoner reallocations) of the U.S. Census data as usable for the purpose of reapportioning the General Assembly. This data set reallocates the census data for most in-state prisoners held in state correctional institutions from the district in which the institution is located to the district that was their last known home address prior to incarceration, with exceptions for those in-state prisoners who are serving life sentences or serving minimum sentences that will not expire before April 1, 2030. The reallocation of the prisoner data was previously approved by the Commission by Resolution 4A at its August 24 meeting, and Resolution 5A at its September 21 meeting. The 2021-10-14 LRC Data Release No. 2 WILL BE USED by the Legislative Reapportionment Commission in the drawing of Pennsylvania's House and Senate districts.
The Commission also approved Resolution 6B, which certified 2021-10-05 LRC Data Release No. 1b (without prisoner adjustments) of the U.S. Census data as usable for purposes other than reapportioning the General Assembly This data set contains the original 2020 census data that was supplied by the U.S. Census Bureau in mid-August, adjusted to include certain geographic corrections.
Note that 2021-10-05 LRC Data Release No. 1b WILL NOT be used by the Legislative Reapportionment Commission in the drawing of Pennsylvania's House and Senate districts.
The production of two data sets was previously approved by the Commission by Resolution 4B at its August 24 meeting.
The 2021-10-14 LRC Data Release No. 2 will be immediately provided to the following redistricting mapping websites: DistrictBuilder, Dave's Redistricting and DistrictR. It is anticipated that these websites will have this adjusted data available within several days for use by the general public to submit suggested maps to the Commission. A notice will be published on the Commission's website once the data bases are operational with 2021-10-14 LRC Data Release No. 2 and the "Submit a Statewide Map" feature will be made available.
More detailed information regarding the original U.S. Census data, 2021-10-14 LRC Data Release No. 2 and 2021-10-05 LRC Data Release No. 1b is available on the "Maps" page at https://www.redistricting.state.pa.us/maps/#census.
Prior to certifying the data, Brent McClintock, Executive Director at the PA Legislative Data Processing Center (Testimony), provided details on the adjustments and corrections that were made to both data sets.
Watch the Meeting (Minutes, Transcript).
*** UPDATED 01/20/2022 ***