The Headlines
Late yesterday afternoon, the MICRC, after five rounds of single-choice voting and one round of ranked voting, chose the Crane A1 map as the remedial draft senate district plan to submit to the court. This map, which will be used for the first time in 2026 if approved, provides new opportunities for historically marginalized communities to elect the candidates of their choice, as did most of those under consideration. The Crane A1 map was not, unfortunately, among the proposed maps that both optimized partisan fairness and received the most positive public input.
The Details
- On Monday, the commission received a memo from the University of Michigan’s CLOSUP containing an aggregate analysis of comments received during the public comment period. From this analysis, CLOSUP identified Szetela, Heron, and Kellom (in that order) as the most positively received maps, and in fact the only maps with net positive favorability ratings.
- During the commission’s deliberations, they developed seven amended drafts of several of the original twelve draft maps, including three amendments of Crane, one amendment of Heron, two amendments of Szetela, and one amendment of Wagner.
- The commission held five rounds of single-choice voting. During each round, Crane A1 received the most votes but failed to reach the constitutional majority of two votes from each major party and two votes from commissioners who are independents. This led to the commission moving into its second phase using ranked voting.
- We very much appreciate the Michigan Department of State’s preparation and professionalism in administering the ranked voting process for the first time in the commission’s history.
- During the ranked voting phase, maps Kellom, Crane A1, Lange, and Szetela v3 were submitted by at least one commissioner as a voting option. (*Note that Szetela and Kellom were two of the top three for net positive public comment.)
- Here is how each commissioner ranked the final 4 map options. *Note the scores represent point values assigned as follows: 1st choice = 4 points, 2nd choice = 3 points, 3rd choice = 2 points, 4th choice = 1 point.
- After the commission ranked their choices, MDOS staff confirmed these rankings and also confirmed that the map with the most “points” was also ranked in the top half of selections by at least two commissioners from a different party affiliation than the commissioner who had put it forward for this phase of voting. At the end of this process, Crane A1 was the commission’s final selection.
- Crane A1 did not receive the most, second most, or third most positive comments from the public during the public comment period, but it did receive last-minute support from one of the spokespersons for the plaintiffs of Agee v Benson, as well as Wayne County Executive Warren Evans and several groups including the Detroit Branch of the NAACP and the Michigan Democratic Party Black Caucus.
- The Crane A1 map, which was not among the maps with the best partisan fairness measures, also represents a missed opportunity to improve upon the partisan fairness of the 2022 Linden map. However, it is considerably less biased than the worst-performing maps under consideration.
- Voters Not Politicians is very concerned that a majority of the commission, with some notable exceptions, chose to dismiss public comment without giving a clear explanation. We will be carefully reviewing the transcripts of the discussions, and look forward to seeing the commission’s constitutionally required report, where they will have to explain the basis on which they made their decision.
- In the house redraw, the MICRC managed to optimize all of the constitutional criteria while clearly taking public comment into account. In the coming days and weeks, VNP will carefully analyze the senate district redraw to attempt to understand how these two processes differed.
- VNP worked very hard throughout the redraws to reach the public, encourage public comment, and protect the independent redistricting process that Michiganders overwhelmingly support. Our work, along with that of our partners, helped ensure that the commission completed its job, avoiding (so far) maps drawn by a special master.
- We still strongly believe that this process is worlds better than the secret, politically-motivated process that Michigan endured for decades before Proposal 18-2 was passed.
What’s Next
After the commission submits its Senate plan to the court, the plaintiffs have until July 5th to file any objections to the Senate plan with the court. The commission then has until July 12th to submit any objections in response to the plaintiffs.
By July 12th, the Reviewing Special Master, Bernard Groffman, will submit his report analyzing the draft Senate plan and its compliance with the constitutional criteria. Each party has the opportunity to file briefs in response to the special report by July 19th.
By July 26th, the court will have adopted a Senate remedial plan, either the commission’s draft proposed plan or a plan drawn by the Mapping Special Master Michael Barber. Please note that, unlike during the House redraw, Barber would only be asked to draft a remedial Senate plan if the commission’s proposed plan was not approved by the court.
Voters Not Politicians will be working to ensure that the lessons learned from this redraw are used to continue to improve the process and deliver even better results for Michiganders in future redistricting cycles.
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