How Government Can Empower Citizens in the Redistricting Process

In January 2011, Michael McDonald and Micah Altman founded the Public Mapping Project and began building the open source platform DistrictBuilder to give citizens more of a say in the redistricting process. We asked McDonald and Altman to share how the project came to be, its key features and how others can put it to use.

What’s the story behind starting DistrictBuilder?

DistrictBuilder allows citizens to draw the boundaries of their communities and generate new redistricting plans via their Web browsers. The software’s engineering and implementation services were provided by Azavea. The Azavea folks deserve a share of the credit — both for the heavy coding and for contributing a portion of the effort pro-bono. Additionally, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation helped to fund the project; their funding helped to make the program a reality...