Episode 32767: Open Democracy Minute for Aug 30, 2021 - NH Redistricing meeting shows broken software, hearings that aren't hearings, and still no meeting schedule

Open Democracy Minute

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. This week's minute was supposed to be about the citizen-drawn redistricting map project called the Map-a-Thon, which meets on Sept. 7, but that will have to wait another week. Instead, the NH House Special Committee on Redistricting met last Wednesday for the first time since the release of 2020 U.S. Census data. Activists and voters around the state hopeful for a transparent meeting, were sadly disappointed. The author of the local, home grown software chosen by the committee for drawing maps discussed his tool and distributed a copy of it to legislators. However, the discussion showed that the software was incomplete, and had bugs that the author freely admitted. It didn't exactly inspire confidence, but at least he was transparent. The public won't be able to inspect the software. Next on the agenda, a discussion of what were public hearings 10 years ago, are now “public listening sessions” in NH's 10 counties, which may mean that testimony and submissions may not be part of the official record. And there won't be prospective maps at these meetings, which may start as early as mid September. But there is no schedule, and the facilities have not been retained. When asked by a legislator member of the committee whether the public would be able to participate via Zoom, the answer was that it “was hard” and it wasn't clear whether internet was available at the locations, so “no.” So much for transparency. As Granny D said, “Democracy is not something we HAVE, it's something we DO.” For the Open Democracy Minute, I'm Brian Beihl.