BACKGROUND

• A non-partisan service contracted through the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government.
• Provides assistance for congressional, state legislative, county commission, local school board, and city council redistricting.
• Staff specializations include geographic information systems, database and information development and management, mapping, and geocoding.

SESSION AND OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES

• Develops redistricting plans working with legislators.
• Using redistricting software, generates legal descriptions for the Office of Legislative Counsel to create a bill – includes committee amendments and floor subs.
• Reviews all local redistricting bills for technical accuracy.
• Produces maps for committee meetings and floor presentations.
• Provides information to AG’s office and local attorneys for DOJ pre-clearance.
• Maintains archive of all plans.
• Produces official reports.

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

• Assists in precinct boundary development and district boundary identification.
• Provides official redistricting maps.
• Geo-codes voter list to assist local elections officials in the assignment of voters to precincts and districts.

WORK WITH THE CENSUS BUREAU

• Insures census data meets the needs of Georgia for redistricting.
• Upcoming issues in Phase One of 2010 census – Race and Ethnicity Testing; in Phase Two the Bureau will initiate the Census Block Boundary Suggestion Program.

ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY

• The office uses the most advanced computer hardware and software available to manage and store large amounts of data.
• Maintains a web page to provide public information – the web page has been very popular with the public and is one of the University’s most highly used web sites.