Guilford County issued the following announcement on Sept. 17.
Guilford County has started the process of redrawing county Board of Commissioners district lines as a result of updated population data provided by the 2020 Census. Commissioners encourage residents to participate in submitting revised district maps and providing comments on map proposals that will be reviewed by the Board of Commissioners as it makes a final decision on where commissioner district lines will be beginning in 2022.
For Guilford County, the redistricting process must be completed by November 18, 2021. At the Board’s scheduled work session on Thursday, September 16, 2021, staff rolled out the new Guilford County 2021 Redistricting portal: https://redistricting.guilfordcountync.gov
Every ten years, commissioner districts must be reviewed to ensure so that each district is substantially equal in population so that each board member represents about the same number of constituents. North Carolina law requires the Board of Commissioners to redraw its districts when the populations of the various districts become substantially unequal. The 2020 Census data, which Guilford County has recently received, clearly demonstrates that the population in our current districts are substantially unequal and must be redrawn.
In the current Board of County Commissioner districts, there is a difference of over 20% between the populations of the largest and the smallest districts, which is more than twice the 10% standard for requiring redistricting.
In addition to considering the population of each district, the Commissioners have adopted several other guiding principles that will be used to evaluate redistricting options. Those principles consist of:
- Fair and Balanced
- Compliance with Applicable Law
- Equal Population Distribution
- Contiguity, Compactness
- Preservation of Precinct and Political Boundaries
- Preservation of Communities of Interest
- Preservation of Cores of Prior Districts
- Avoiding Pairing of Incumbents
- Competitiveness and Proportionality
Residents and stakeholders are encouraged to participate by helping draw district lines and providing proposed maps and public comments using information provided on the Guilford County Board of Commissioners 2021 Redistricting website.
There, the public will find guidance on how to submit maps and a link to Dave’s Redistricting App (DRA 2020), the County’s preferred platform for the public to create maps. Dave’s Redistricting App is an online free web app to create, view, analyze and share redistricting maps for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Additional preferred file formats for submittals are listed on the 2021 Redistricting website.
Why Districting Matters
Redistricting determines which neighborhoods and communities are grouped together into a district for purposes of electing a board member. Typically, these lines will not be changed until the next ten-year census.
The public will have multiple opportunities over the next several weeks to prepare and submit redistricting proposals, review proposals submitted by others, and provide comments on proposals to the Board of Commissioners.
Original source can be found here.
