Soybean field

After the 2020 Census comes the dreaded redistricting.   The town clerk sent the maps she had received of how our town would be affected.  The town (populatione 500 some) would have pieces combined w/ pieces of other neighboring towns to make up new 'districts'.   Districts only affect the voting for County Board Reps but it means every two years we would need either multiple types of ballots or a ballot w/ multiple options and a way to determine that you voted in your correct district.  She asked the Elections Chief Inspector and me if we wanted to comment on how this might affect voting.  Here is my answer:

Yes.  My suggestion is that the whole Town of Atlanta be placed in only one district. 

The only reason I can see from these documents for redistricting is to try to  equalize the number of people in each district.  This is a rural area and we aren’t talking thousands of people difference.   I don’t believe our citizens care if a supervisor has a few more or less people they represent.  People coming in to vote identify with the town they live in rather then being a small portion of people lumped in with another town to make up a  'district’.   This  isn’t even taking into consideration the cost for extra ballots when voting for supervisors or the difficulty of explaining to people which district they live in plus trying to answer why such a goofy system was set up.  Finally, if this idiocy goes forward the person (people) making up these ‘redistricting’ maps should be pilloried in the newspaper and their picture(s) hung in each town hall so people waiting to vote (because this redistricting will cause delays) can have something to chuck darts at.

As you can see I started getting worked up toward the end.  I read the redistricting manual and it does talk about trying to keep each district within 10% population but it also states that when working w/ towns of less than 1,000 people existing municipality bountries should be followed.  The final vote by the County Board will be Monday.  I doubt any of them will want to stand up and ask for lines to be redrawn.   Another example of our government at work for us.