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P.L. 94-171 Summary File - See 'Redistricting Data (P.L. 94-171) Summary File'
Packing - A term to describe when a community of interest is over-concentrated within a small number of districts when it could have been allocated between a larger number districts and still had the ability to elect a candidate of its choice, for example, being 85% of the population of one district when it could have been 55% of the population of two districts. Packing is a problem because over-concentrating a community of interest in one district reduces or dilutes its ability to achieve fair representation in the legislative body in general.
Preclearance - Preclearance can be understood as permission from the federal government which certain jurisdictions must obtain before they can start using new voting policies or procedures. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires covered jurisdictions to obtain preclearance for all voting changes, including redistricting plans. Covered jurisdictions can decide whether to submit a change for preclearance to the US Department of Justice or to a federal court in Washington, DC. The federal government can object to a change that was adopted for a discriminatory purpose or that has a retrogressive effect.nbsp;
In California four counties are covered under Section 5 of the VRA: Kings, Merced, Monterey, and Yuba. That means that the statewide redistricting plans must be precleared before the state can use the new districts. However, the federal government can only object to portions of the plan in one or more of the four covered counties.
Public Law 94-171 or P.L. 94-171 - The Federal law that requires the Census Bureau to collect and provide to the states certain demographic information for use in redistricting.
