Azavea Inc., an award-winning Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software design and development firm, announces the release of a new ‘Cicero Free’ plan - a free subscription plan for Cicero, Azavea’s district matching and elected official lookup web service API. The plan offers up to 1,000 credits each month which can be used toward any coordinate-based legislative district matching, elected official data lookups and/or map web service requests. Avencia created the ‘Cicero Free’ pricing plan to give organizations with limited resources the opportunity to provide their website or online application with legislative data through the Cicero API free of charge.

Azavea President, Robert Cheetham, was interviewed this week by CNN National Political Correspondent, Jessica Yellin. The interview, about the current redistricting process in the United States, was part of a special series called, "Broken Government." CNN’s “Broken Government” series examines all branches of government and explores how much of the system may be broken beyond repair.

For all our readers out there who love our district matching and legislator web API, Cicero, we have two pieces of good news. First, our move to the ArcGIS Online premium geocoding service earlier this year has enabled us to lower the price of Cicero. We have also changed our pricing from a subscription model based on the number of hits per month to one based on annual blocks of credits. Second, we are launching a new Batch Geocoding and District Matching service.

With Redistricting 2011 around the corner, Avencia Incorporated, a Philadelphia-based geographic analysis and software development firm, is releasing the “Redistricting The Nation” (www.redistrictingthenation.com) website to provide the public with better information about the legislative redistricting process and tools that support and encourage fair representation and competitive elections.

Avencia, an award-winning software design and development company, and the Committee of Seventy, the region’s premier non-partisan government watchdog group, today launched a website dedicated to raising public awareness in the Greater Philadelphia area about the potential impact of the 2010 census on federal, state and local election districts. Boundaries in all of Pennsylvania’s election districts are redrawn every ten years after the constitutionally-required census reports the number of people living in the United States and its territories. “Redistricting the Philadelphia Region” – available at www.redistrictingthenation.com/philadelphia – is the initial installment of Avencia’s “Redistricting the Nation” project, the national version of which will be unveiled later this month. The goal of the local and national efforts is to ensure non-partisan redistricting that will encourage fair representation and competitive elections.