2 Ways to Change Voting Districts

Everybody thinks it will work out in the end, but the and the are using different strategies to change voting district boundaries.

The commission voted to change the city charter. The school board is asking the General Assembly to make the change.

The change is being made to more nearly equalize population in the districts, as mandated by the U.S. Justice Department.

To see the area in question, look at the photo accompanying this story.  The little tab that sticks down out of District 1 will become part of District 2.

That tab is part of the campus, bordered by South McDonough Street, East College Street, East Dougherty Street and South Candler Street.

The commission and the school board have had identical election district boundaries. Members say they want to continue that practice.

On Sept. 6, the City Commission voted to change the city charter to change the districts.

But the school board was uncertain about doing it that way because the power to change the school board voting districts is not clearly delineated in the home rule statutes.

“We took a conservative approach that we’d need the General Assembly to do the redistricting,” said school board attorney Debra A. Golymbieski.

The school board hoped legislators would act on the Decatur boundaries this summer during the special session on redistricting for legislative and congressional seats, but that didn’t happen.

Golymbieski said she has no reason to believe the legislation will not pass in the regular session in early 2012.

If it doesn’t, the school board and city commission might end up with slightly different election district boundaries.

Commission member Jim Baskett said he was worried about setting a precedent in which the two boards could have different districts. That would confuse voters, he said.

The city said the recent census found District 1 has 10,437 people while District 2 contains 8,896. That difference of 1,541 people results in a deviation of about 7.97 percent.  

Election districts should not have a deviation greater than 5 percent, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

By adding 810 people to District 2, the districts will have a deviation of about .40 percent, the city said. The changes are necessary for the city to comply with the one-person, one-vote standard of the U.S. and Georgia constitutions.