The MaRiPoSa Redistribution Modernization Platform: Infrastructure for Canadian Electoral Boundary Review

Working Paper


Abstract

Electoral redistricting in single-member plurality systems requires drawing boundaries that satisfy competing legal, geographic, and demographic constraints, yet the tools available to to the publics they affect remain opaque, fragmented, or inaccessible. We present the MaRiPoSa Redistribution Modernization Platform (MRMP), an open-source, full-stack web application designed to support the redistribution of Canada's 343 federal electoral districts.

Built on Statistics Canada census boundary data across all thirteen provinces and territories, the platform integrates interactive map editing, real-time electoral analytics, and computational redistricting methods within a unified interface accessible to commissioners, researchers, and the public alike. An AI-assisted advisory system translates between computational outputs and redistricting criteria, while community overlays, compactness metrics, partisan fairness measures, and census demographic profiles enable users to evaluate plans against the substantive standards that redistricting commissions are legally required to balance.


MRMP renders visible the trade-offs among population parity, community preservation, and geographic compactness that boundary commissions navigate—trade-offs otherwise buried in the combinatorial complexity of the mapping problem itself. We provide an infrastructure for both applied redistricting practice and empirical research on boundary effects in Canadian elections.

Authors

Mike Cowan, Del Coburn, Chris Greenaway, Matt Price, Thierry Sans, Christopher Cochrane

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