Esri Launches Comprehensive Web-Based Redistricting Solution.

New Service Enables Immediate Development and Sharing of Redistricting Scenarios

REDLANDS, Calif., Feb. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Esri now offers the first and only service that facilitates the creation and sharing of redistricting plans on a web-based platform. Esri Redistricting enables state and local governments, advocacy groups, and citizens to complete official, regulation-compliant plans and share them directly with specific stakeholders or the public. The State of Alabama was among the first to procure this solution. A free 30-day trial is available at esri.com/redistricting.

"As government is encouraged to bring more transparency and accountability to critical activities such as redistricting, we are seeing significant interest in this offering," says Richard Leadbeater, state government industry manager at Esri. "Besides providing an online platform for developing redistricting plans, this solution makes it possible to engage citizens in what has long been an exclusive process."

Esri Redistricting provides staff and decision makers with a common picture of current or proposed districts and sophisticated geospatial analysis tools required for redistricting. It can be quickly accessed from multiple locations through a web browser, eliminating the need to install and maintain software.

Customers can

* Delineate district boundaries based on census geography.

* Examine demographics of critical areas.

* Analyze for compactness or fracturing.

* Monitor population targets.

Because Esri Redistricting includes basemaps, past census data, and Public Law 94-171 data, customers can begin to evaluate redistricting scenarios before official 2010 US Census data is released in March 2011. The application also facilitates the production of documentation that may be requested by the Department of Justice to ensure that proposed district boundaries comply with Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discriminatory redistricting practices.

To meet the redistricting needs of states, counties, local governments, and advocacy organizations of all sizes, Esri Redistricting is available as either Software as a Service on a subscription basis or a configured offering hosted and managed by Esri or deployed on premises. The configured option allows the integration of customers' proprietary datasets to create a robust, data-rich resource to support redistricting as well as future legislative and operational decision making.

To learn more and sign up for the free trial, visit esri.com/ redistricting. To request a quote, e-mail redistricting@esri.com.

About Esri

Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in geographic information system (GIS) technology, Esri software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. Esri applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. Esri is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at esri.com/news.

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SOURCE Esri