How much does it cost to participate in the redistricting process? Common software that politicians, political parties, and lobbyists use for redistricting costs anywhere from $4,500 a year to a $7,000 one-time fee. At FairVote, we don't believe that participation in the redistricting process should be limited to those who can afford to spend thousands of dollars on software. We are proud to present you with our Redistricting Guide, which gives you a crash course in the free redistricting software we used to create our Monopoly Politics 2012 and Fair Voting 2012 reports.

Our new guide shows you how to participate in the process in two important ways. First, we show you tools to analyze districts and find out how fair the lines drawn by politicans, courts, and commissions actually are. Second, we cover tools that help you draw your own districts, and make alternatives to plans that you feel do not fully represent the people.

A preview of some of the tools covered by the guide:

Dave's Redistricting App: A simple, fast, user-friendly tool for all your redistricting needs.

Census Data: The census provides incredibly useful datasets that allow you to precisely determine demographic information for a new district plan.

MapWindow: A useful, flexible tool that can examine and edit districts at a very high level of detail.

BARD (Better Automated Redistricting): A powerful redistricting tool that allows you to automatically generate and refine districts based on any criteria you have data for.

Happy mapping!