Raleigh, NC – A leading redistribution expert who analyzed maps that North Carolina lawmakers were forced to redraw is investigating and facing allegations of data manipulation and ill-treatment of colleagues when analyzing redirection data in another state.
Sam Wang allegedly manipulated data from the New Jersey Congress to gain an advantage through independent voting card reviews, This was reported by the New Jersey Globe.
Wang is the director of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project and Princeton University’s Electoral Innovation Lab, which provides non-partisan analysis of state voting plans, including North Carolina.
Princeton spokesman Michael Hochkis said the university was under investigation, but declined to say who or what was being investigated and when the trial could be completed. “The university avoids commenting on ongoing investigations for the sake of fairness to those involved,” Hochkis said in a statement.
Wang did not immediately respond to phone and email messages asking for comment.
In February, Wang was selected as one of four research assistants tasked with assisting a panel of three North Carolina judges and three independent district redistribution experts known as “special masters” to evaluate Republican ballots drawn up in court.
In a letter dated March 1, Princeton’s human resources manager informed Wang’s team about the freezing of future hires during the investigation and said workers could not “provide services to any outside party” without the prior permission of Wang and another university official, documents show. . The Globe, which first reported the investigation, also cited complaints in which Wang accused him of misjudging the Pennsylvania map.
Wang was sent in writing to pass on to colleagues the documents received by the Globe and viewed by the WRAL show. The messages were passed to the staff so that the university could keep a current record, the documents show.
State Sen. Ralph Hayes, a Mitchell County Republican who is actively involved in the redistribution of the North Carolina area, said the report casts a shadow over the fairness of the state’s recently adopted maps.
“Allegations that he distorted data in favor of Democrats during the redistribution process in New Jersey should completely call into question his involvement in North Carolina,” Hayes said in a statement. “Eventually, the court accepted the map drawn up by the Special Masters team.”
Earlier, Wang was critical of unjust lines created for pure guerrilla gain.
Early personal voting at the state primaries on May 17 began on Thursday.
Every 10 years the state is instructed to hold new lines in Congress to reflect population change. The process of redistribution of the district affects the party composition of the US House of Representatives and state legislatures. Although some states have independent commissions overseeing the process, the battles for North Carolina’s perestroika in recent decades have become brass political strugglewhile the ruling party controls the process and draws maps.
Maps approved by the state legislature, which is controlled by the rep in November 2021 were challenged in court by voter rights groups who argued that the strings were unconstitutional herrimanders. The lawsuits eventually led to Fr. repainting by court order.
The new state congressional map is likely to give Republicans a 7-6 lead in the U.S. House of Representatives, and an additional district outside Raleigh will be tossed. Under the old map, Republicans could win 11 of the 14 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Wang and his fellow researchers from Princeton made many suggestions to North Carolina last year Grade “F”..
Republican lawmakers in February unsuccessfully sought to remove Wang and another researcher, Tyler Jarvis, from assisting special masters. У their complaintlawmakers have introduced a chain of emails suggesting that Jarvis and Van misinformed plaintiffs’ experts.
The North Carolina Board of Judges, which included two Republicans and one Democrat, decided to re-elect the legislature to the House of Representatives and the State Senate. The court has adopted its own congressional card, which will be used only in the 2022 election. The state’s Supreme Court, which includes four Democrats and three Republicans, upheld the lower court’s decision.
Bob Orr, a former state Supreme Court judge who was one of three special masters who helped draft the congressional map, said in an interview that Wang’s involvement as an assistant was with an analysis of the redesigned boundaries of Congress and the legislature.
Orr said Wang did not affect the image of the congressional card. Rather, Orr said Bernard Groffman, a political scientist at the University of California, Irvine, was working on the US House of Representatives’ time map.
“It wasn’t Wang,” Orr said of the Princeton researcher’s involvement. “He had nothing to do with the final set of cards for constituencies.”
The Wake County Supreme Court and the state Supreme Court, which gave final approval to the congressional map, did not respond to a request for comment regarding the Princeton investigation.
University investigation faces University expert on redistribution of Princeton districts who analyzed NC voting cards :: WRAL.com
Source link University investigation faces University expert on redistribution of Princeton districts who analyzed NC voting cards :: WRAL.com