Dave's Redistricting App (DRA) is an online web app originally created by Dave Bradlee that allows anyone to simulate redistricting a U.S. state's congressional and legislative districts.[1][2]
According to Bradlee, the software was designed to "put power in people's hands," and so that they "can see how the process works, so it's a little less mysterious than it was 10 years ago."[3] Bradlee has noticed that many citizens are taking this process seriously and using his app to create legitimate redistricting maps that could be put in place. Some websites have called Bradlee the pioneer and cause of the rise of do-it-yourself redistricting.[4][5][6][7] States such as Montana in 2021 allowed the general population to use it to submit redistricting proposals following the 2020 United States Census.[8]
Dave's Redistricting has frequently been mentioned as a resource that can be used to combat gerrymandering, given that the public has free access to it.[4][5][7]
Dave Bradlee built the first generation of DRA. DRA 2020 is built by a small team of volunteers — Dave Bradlee, Terry Crowley, Alec Ramsay, and David Rinn — all with a shared passion for technology & democracy and all Microsoft veterans. Their mission is to empower civic organizations and citizen activists to advocate for fair congressional and legislative districts and increased transparency in the redistricting process.[11]
Users can redraw the congressional & state legislative districts for all 50 states and the District of Columbia using a variety of census & election datasets including Cook PVI. Maps can be optimized for different criteria.[9]
DRA 2020 added several major features to the first generation app:
Sharing & collaborative editing of maps, like Google Docs
Multiple statewide elections for all 50 states
Comprehensive analytics for evaluating & comparing maps
Custom overlays, and
Block-level editing
DRA remains free to use.
Versions
2.2: This uses Bing Maps, an outdated software that projects the districts of a single state onto a map of the United States.
2.5: After Bing Maps announced that it would no longer be updating for the foreseen future, the U.S. Map feature was removed.
