Maptitude for Redistricting Newsletter Winter 2010

Winter 2010 Newsletter


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A Warm Welcome to Our New Clients

During the 2000 round of redistricting a majority of the state legislatures used Maptitude for Redistricting. For the current round, we are pleased to welcome five additional state legislatures to the Maptitude community:

Idaho Legislative Services
Mississippi Joint Reapportionment Committee
New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographics and Reapportionment (LATFOR)
North Carolina General Assembly
North Dakota Legislative Council.

We will report on additional new clients in future newsletters. For a more complete list of our clients, visit our website. If your organization is not currently using Maptitude for Redistricting, I encourage you to talk with your colleagues at any of our client organizations and find out what they have to say about us.

Kansas Legislature Chooses Caliper to Adjust PL 94-171 Data

Caliper Corporation is pleased to announce its award of a contract with the state of Kansas to adjust the federal 2010 Census Public Law 94-171 population data and produce a set of adjusted population figures for use in state legislative redistricting. Article 10, Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution requires that Kansas Senate, Kansas House, and Kansas State Board of Education districts be drawn using US Census Bureau decennial population figures adjusted to count college students and military personnel at their places of permanent residence. Such persons with different current and permanent 2010 Census block codes need to be updated. Caliper will move each respondent from their current location to their permanent location, updating all the appropriate tables based upon their age, race and Hispanic origin status.

Native Maptitude for Redistricting Works with ESRI File Geodatabases - No Conversion Necessary

If your organization uses ArcGIS, here are some things to keep in mind when evaluating redistricting software:

You now have the option of purchasing the native version of Maptitude for Redistricting OR the Maptitude for Redistricting Extension for ArcGIS. The native version of Maptitude for Redistricting interoperates with ESRI File Geodatabases and ArcView Shapefiles. You can map and edit your File Geodatabases and Shapefiles natively, without any file conversion. Change the display style, create themes, set labels, and create layouts, all from within Maptitude! You can also convert these files to Maptitude format and convert Maptitude files to File Geodatabases and Shapefiles. After you have built a plan, you can turn the plan's geographic layer into an ESRI file format, including all of the plan's data, for direct mapping in ArcGIS.

If you know how to use ArcGIS, you already know how to use Maptitude. ArcGIS users learn Maptitude very quickly.

Other Redistricting Services and Products from Caliper

Caliper offers a comprehensive set of services and software products that complement the functionality of Maptitude for Redistricting:

Training – Caliper offers training in Maptitude for Redistricting at your site or at our training facility in Newton, Massachusetts. Training at your site is at a fixed daily rate no matter how many students are in the class. You can find detailed information about the training workshops at our website.
Software Customization – Caliper can customize Maptitude for Redistricting to meet your specific needs. Examples include custom reports, unique analytical capabilities, and the automation of report generation and map creation for completed plans.
Data Preparation – We offer data processing services. Some examples are incorporating political data, adjusting Census data for prison, military, or student populations, disaggregating data to the block level, and aggregating data to new updated geographic layers (e.g., from old precinct boundaries to current precincts).
On-site and telephone support.
Maptitude Online Redistricting – Maptitude Online Redistricting is web-based redistricting software designed for governments or organizations that want to provide their members or the general public with a means to draw and report redistricting plans. Because the PC and online versions share common file formats, plans developed online can be electronically submitted to the central redistricting office, opened in the PC-based software, and analyzed to the full extent as if they had been created using the PC-based software.
Custom Web Application –The Maptitude map server engine lets you publish live maps on the Web. Caliper can create a Web application customized to your exact requirements. Under a typical scenario, the user enters an address to zoom the map and display information about the current Congressional and state legislative districts at this location, elected officials, proposed redistricting plans, demographics, and any other information you choose to include.

Events:

National Association of Counties Annual Conference & Exposition
July 16-20, 2010 Reno NV
We will be highlighting the Maptitude for Redistricting Extension for ArcGIS.

NCSL Summit
July 25-28, 2010 Lexington KY
The National Conference of State Legislatures annual Legislative Summit is the largest and most substantive meeting of its kind in the nation. Each year more than 6,000 legislators, staff and others interested in public policy attend informative sessions on critical problems to hear nationally renowned speakers, and to vote on policies to guide the advocacy efforts of the Conference. Caliper Corporation will be participating in the Redistricting and Elections Committee meetings.