Alaska Redistricting Board Calculates District Gains and Losses - Precint By Precinct

I don't totally understand this yet, but I thought it important to get this email from the Alaska Redistricting Board up for people to see.  (If you sign up with the Board, they will send you updates like this.)

They got the initial data and the staff have been trying to organize it.  You can see all the districts here on the Board's website.

It should come as no surprise that Matsu has the biggest gains.   Here's District 1 in Fairbanks. The cooler colors represent losses of population.  The warmer colors gains.

Population Change

This table compares Alaska's 2010 to 2020 Census population count at the voting precinct level.
Click column heads to sort. Click again to reverse sort order. Monochrome

District	Prec.	Name	2010	2020	Diff	Change
District 1 ~ Fairbanks ~ Map: HD01-A.pdf
1 (A)	446	Aurora	2,995	3,108	113	+3.77%
1 (A)	475	Fairbanks No. 4	1,143	993	-150	-13.12%
1 (A)	485	Fairbanks No. 6	2,483	2,390	-93	-3.75%
1 (A)	470	Fairbanks No. 3	1,872	1,872	0	0.00%
1 (A)	465	Fairbanks No. 2	1,542	1,468	-74	-4.80%
1 (A)	455	Fairbanks No. 1	659	580	-79	-11.99%
1 (A)	490	Fairbanks No. 7	3,010	2,637	-373	-12.39%
1 (A)	480	Fairbanks No. 5	2,885	2,668	-217	-7.52%
1 (A)	495	Fairbanks No. 10	1,137	1,466	329	+28.94%
–– >	9 Ps	District: 1 Totals:	17,726	17,182	-544	-3.07%

"Good afternoon subscribers,

After many hours of data crunching, we have a couple of key reports available for your review. These are:  

1. A table of population changes from 2010 to 2020 at the house district precinct level. This shows how each of Alaska's 441 precincts increased or decreased in population over the last 10 years. District totals are also provided. Click table heads to sort, click again to reverse sort order. Warm colors are up, cool colors are down. Click Monochrome if coloration is not preferred.
   
2. A report of each house district's 2020 population compared to the new ideal district population of 18,335. (733,391 divided by 40). Click title heads to sort, click again to reverse sort order. Warm colors are high, cool colors are low. Click Monochrome if coloration is not preferred.
3. An Excel sheet with the data for your computing convenience. Click to download. Available formats are .xlsx and .xls

See: https://www.akredistrict.org/pop

Here's how we got to the numbers:

The Alaska Department of Labor imported the 2020 legacy-formatted Census data¹ into their demographic software and sent us Excel reports of Alaska's 2010 and 2020 population for all of Alaska's 441 voting precincts. This is the foundation of our population change table.

To verify the 2020 numbers, we did the same thing independently. We downloaded the 2020 legacy data and loaded the lines² which provide voting precinct counts into a relational database. We then overlayed the Department of Labor's 2020 precinct population numbers with ours.

Row-by-row, every precinct population matched exactly.

This is how a voting precinct total appears in the legacy-formatted Census data. (line 7,991, akgeo2020.pl)

To further validate our findings, next we totaled the precinct populations for each house district and compared these line-by-line with the house district summary population values contained elsewhere in the raw legacy data.³ 

Once again, every value matched exactly.

This is how a house district total appears in legacy-formatted Census data. (line 4,496, akgeo2020.pl)

On April 26, the Census reported that the total resident state population was 733,391. When we total all 441 of our individual voting precincts the result is: 733,391. When we total all of our 40 house districts the result is: 733,391.

After these and other validation exercises, we conclude that the reports published on our website today faithfully interpret the findings of the 2020 Census. Of course, we will re-verify these numbers again using the fixed DVD media we expect to officially receive from the Census Bureau on September 30.

Have a great evening,

Peter Torkelson

Executive Director

Alaska Redistricting Board

1 – You may download the legacy-formatted data here:

https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/data/01-Redistricting_File--PL_94-171/Alaska/

2 – See lines 7,989 - 8,444 of the legacy-formatted file titled 'akgeo2020.pl'. The precinct name appears three columns to the left of the population value. There are more than 441 lines used to report precinct populations as some precincts are reported in multiple parts, one part on each line.

3 – See lines 4,495 - 4,534 of the legacy-formatted file titled 'akgeo2020.pl'. The district name appears three columns to the left of the population value."