Virginia's Redistricting Commission has its first draft maps. They look... normal?

The Virginia Redistricting Commission got its first look at draft General Assembly maps Thursday as consultants delivered proposals for part of Northern Virginia with districts that look far more normally shaped than the ones that exist now.

A pair of consultants drew their proposed House of Delegates and Senate districts from scratch, following the guidance of the new commission that was supposed to empower citizens to lead the process previously dominated by incumbent legislators.

The initial result was maps with more straight lines and less meandering squiggles. That contrast was confirmed, the consultants said, by algorithmic scores showing their maps are indeed more compact than the existing ones.

The consultant said they didn’t consider incumbents’ home addresses, a measure that might have made the proposed maps hew more closely to existing ones, when creating their drafts.

Read more: https://www.virginiamercury.com/2021/09/02/virginias-redistricting-commission-has-its-first-draft-maps-they-look-normal/