Drawing District Lines In Lowell: Protecting The Right To Vote For Communities Of Color

Lowell is changing to a district-based electoral system for City Council and School Committee following the settlement of a federal Voting Rights Act case that alleged that the City’s former electoral system illegally diluted the vote of the City’s communities of color.  District lines will be drawn in Summer 2020 by an independent expert selected jointly by the City and the Plaintiffs.

Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association (CMAA), Latinx Community Center for Empowerment (LCCE), and Lowell Alliance, together with Lawyers for Civil Rights, are conducting a multi-part campaign to engage Lowell’s diverse communities in the districting process.  Through multi-lingual written materials, videos, and digital content (#LowellLines), the groups are communicating to residents about the districting process and gathering input from community members about where district lines should be drawn. This critical community education initiative is funded in part through a generous grant from the Theodore Edson Parker Foundation. 

Lowell Districting Fact Sheets

A brief explanation of the line-drawing process, and why it matters, can be found here in English, Khmer, Spanish and Portuguese.

View the Lowell Districting Fact Sheet in English →

Vea la hoja informativa sobre la delimitación de distritos en Lowell en Español →

Veja a ficha informativa do distrito de Lowell em português →

សូមមើលតារាងអង្គហេតុបំភ័ន្តជាភាសាខ្មែរ →

Lowell Districting Background Materials

Click here for the press release announcing our education and community engagement plan.

Learn more about the lawsuit that led to this historic change on our website, in WBUR, and WGBH.

Interactive Mapping Tool

Want to start drawing district lines yourself?  Check out this interactive tool created by our allies at Tufts University.