Election Commission Notifies Voters Affected by Boundary Changes

Because of redistricting and the realignment of precinct boundary lines, some voters may have to cast ballots at a different location than where they have been accustomed to voting.
Dennis Stanley, Administrator of Elections, said the election commission is sending out letters informing those who will be affected by the change. “The law says we must notify voters if their voting location is changed and we have done that. Letters have now gone out to everyone that was impacted by either a district change or by a precinct change. Those who have been impacted by redistricting have now received their letter or will receive it today or tomorrow. We wanted to get those out before the holiday break. If you have any questions whatsoever, simply call us at the election office at 597-4146 and we’ll go over the issue with you and make sure you’re in the correct place and if not it will be an issue the election commission can look at down the road,” said Stanley.
By law redistricting has to be done every ten years, based on the latest census and the plan for redistricting has to be adopted by the county commission no later than January 1st. Due to a unique set of circumstances, Stanley said DeKalb County had to act sooner. ” We had district races coming up in March for the constables and we had to get that going quickly because for the March election we had to use the new district lines. So we not only needed to know where voters would have to vote, but we also had to know whether a candidate was qualifying in the correct district or not. So I want to commend the county commission for working with us and getting this redistricting plan adopted as well as David Tirpak with the state office of local government. He assisted us. That part has been done. It was then up to the election commission to draw the precinct lines. That has been done,” said Stanley.
“Going into this redistricting plan, we had a variance of seventeen percent,” said Stanley. ” What that means is, every district must be as close as possible to the same number of people. We had a variance of seventeen percent. We had one district that was nine percent over the norm and one that was eight percent under the norm. But with the help of David Tirpak and the county commission, a plan has been adopted that I am very proud of. We now have a variance of only 3.8% which is darn near perfect. Precincts is more of a boundary issue as far as size of the area but the districts have to be drawn based on population. Precincts can be done other ways. The law simply says you can’t have more than five thousand people in a precinct which is not a problem here,” said Stanley.
Meanwhile, the election commission has changed the location of the elementary school voting precinct to the new county complex building on South Congress Boulevard. Voters who have cast ballots at the elementary school in the past will now vote at the new building.