Propositions 11 and 20 promised to change the political landscape of California by redrawing district lines based on non-partisan, objective criteria.
But the data used to draw some of those lines may have been flawed, according to Dr. Michael Ward of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission.
A key basis for building the redistricting maps were what Ward called "main themed wrap-ups" where map makers compiled data from the communities they visited and then "boiled it down" to a main theme.
"There's no question that part of the data that the commission was presented," said Ward, "was incorrect, was just flat wrong."
Despite the errors in the wrap-ups, Ward said the commissioners used the data to draw district lines.
"When I tried to follow up on it, it took weeks later after several versions of the maps had been built and completed," Ward said, " to determine in fact there was no input that supported those main themes."
