In hiring a consultant to redraw the county districts, the legislature went out of its way to avoid the appearance of impropriety. The consultants, Main Street Communications, were only to be in contact with the county manager and the real property office, and base the district lines on population. Each district needed to be within five percent of 8,627 people.

This requirement was followed. However, the maps that were created are filled with boundaries that zig and zag without regard to natural household groupings. In my small neighborhood, for example, a cluster of six households somewhat isolated from the nearest hamlet, two households are cut off from the other four by one of the proposed district boundaries.

Other districts connect large swatches of people who have very different lived experiences and challenges, based on their geography and the demographics of their communities. Some carve out population centers like Jeffersonville, and separate them from all that surrounds them.

Which is all to say, you cannot create districts based simply on population numbers. Additionally, New York State law says that districts must be drawn to maintain cores of cities, towns, villages, existing districts and other communities of interest.

It is here that all three of the maps fall short. 

The inherent nature of the communities that are in a given district needs to be taken into consideration. Communities cannot be split based on population numbers. 

The legislators should reject all three options, with thanks, and start over.

We’re lucky in redrawing these maps that the intent is not to gerrymander. And it’s important to remember that today’s legislators are not immediately affected by this redistricting. It doesn’t take effect until January 2024, with politicians running for the new districts in November 2023, next year.

So how can we be more thoughtful or strategic in redrawing these lines? 

Here are a few of my questions:
Where are our communities? 
How do we strengthen them?
Who has similar challenges?
Where do people work together well? 
What do our elected officials need to be effective and efficient? 
What level of population detail do we need to have this be a meaningful exercise? 

And speaking of a meaningful exercise, we must remember that these maps use inadequate census data, collected two years ago, during a pandemic. Some people who live and work here had concerns about how their information would be used. And the figures do not reflect the subsequent major influx of people within the last 18 months.

The legislature is slated to vote on Thursday, July 21 and adopt a map. They need to reject all the maps, and start over.