Task of drawing NY political maps falls to judge and scholar

Task of drawing NY political maps falls to judge and scholar

FILE - A partial views of the New York state Capitol building, left, is shown next to the state Appellate court building in foreground, right, Monday, April 4, 2022, in Albany, N.Y. A panel of five mid-level New York appellate judges have ruled on Thursday, April 21, 2022 that state Democrats engaged in gerrymandering when drawing new congressional district boundaries for the next decade. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink, File)

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The task of redrawing New York’s congressional district maps has fallen to a rural judge and a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University. That’s after New York’s highest court threw out congressional maps drawn by the state Legislature, and the state Court of Appeals ruled those maps were unconstitutionally gerrymandered Wednesday. That ruling dealt a big blow to Democrats’ hopes of crafting a heavily favorable electoral map. Jonathan Cervas is a postdoctoral fellow who previously played a key role helping create Pennsylvania’s legislative district maps. Cervas faces a tight deadline to draw maps for review by state Judge Patrick McAllister — the lower-court jurist who initially declared the state Legislature maps unconstitutional.

Photo: FILE – A partial views of the New York state Capitol building, left, is shown next to the state Appellate court building in foreground, right, Monday, April 4, 2022, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink, File)