The US census, redistricting, and technology - A 30-year perspective

Since 1790, apportionment of political power among states has been the cons titutional purpose for the national census. Since 1970, the Census Bureau h as played an additional role and has provided the population data for the i ntrastate redistricting process. Evolving case law and advancing technology changed the landscape of players and methods, but the census information h as remained the common denominator in redistricting. The "one-person/one-vo te" decisions pushed state legislators to achieve population balance across districts. In turn, state legislative officials pushed the Census Bureau t o recognize their voting precincts as tabulation areas. The bureau not only fulfilled this request but also created a computerized map of the nation-c alled Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing system ( TIGER)-and broadened access to the decennial census redistricting data by m aking it available on CD-ROM with built-in access software. For Census 2000 , legislatures will have the Internet as a new option for accessing these d ata.