Public Meeting on Redistricting Draws Local Crowd

A crowd of fifty people gathered in the courtroom of the Winston County Courthouse for a public hearing on countywide redistricting on Monday night (4-11-11). In attendance were the Winston County Board of Supervisors, County Attorney, Hugh Hathorn, representatives from Golden Triangle Planning and Development and Oxford attorney, David O’Donnell who is representing the County through the legal processes of redistricting.

The County is required to redistrict due to population loss and shift within the county as indicated by the 2010 census. Voting districts are required to have similar population sizes with variances from largest to smallest populations of less than 10%. The census indicated a variance in Winston County of 13.2%. Dave Alexander of Golden Triangle Planning & Development (GTPD) indicated that the redistricting goal was to minimize change to prevent voter confusion, consider racial makeup, prevent the shifting of existing candidates from one district to another and to follow natural boundaries as much as possible.

The Census indicated that the county lost almost 1000 individuals from 2000 to 2010 and that District 2 saw significant growth in population while District 3 saw a loss. GTPD has presented three plans to the Board for consideration which shifted population from one district to another by census block. A census block is the smallest local unit of population measurement and cannot be split. The three plans vary due to the individual census blocks that may have been moved between districts.

Several members of the public raised questions and made statements concerning the process. Most comments centered on the racial makeup of each district and the percentage of black majority particularly in District 3. Several individuals asked about the possibility of having two districts with 60% black majorities. In all proposed plans, District 4 would have a black majority in excess ranging from 72.3% to 75.1% while District 3 would have a black majority from 50.5% to 56.5%. Alexander indicated that some further review would be conducted on this issue but that any positive changes in one district would obviously result in a corresponding adverse change in another.

The Board of Supervisors will take all plans under consideration plus public input before submitting a final plan to the U.S. Department of Justice which is required under the Voting Rights Act. The implementation of the Winston County plan and other plans in counties across the state are subject to a lawsuit filed by the NAACP. Attorney O’Donnell indicated that one of the objectives of the suit was to require the implementation of any redistricting changes to the current elections. The process is further complicated by the fact that it may be late summer or fall before a plan is approved by DOJ. This would make it difficult to implement the plan as primary elections are scheduled for August 2nd. The three plans and statistical data developed by GTPD are available for viewing at the Winston County Courthouse.

William McCully