(Owego, NY) – The Tioga County Legislature will hold a public hearing on proposed new legislative districts prior to its regular meeting on January 11. If the decision is made to adopt a scenario, the Legislature will vote on the new district boundaries at a special meeting tentatively scheduled for January 20. In this manner and timetable, the new legislative district boundaries will be set for petition development ahead of the primary elections to be held in June 2022.
BACKGROUND
Typically at the start of a new decade, the United States Census Bureau (Census Bureau) conducts the decennial census and completes data collection by the end of July of the new decade year. Then the Census Bureau releases the 100% population count to the States localities during January of the “1” year in order to start the reapportionment or redistricting process. Therefore, in 2010 the Census Bureau released the 100% population data in January 2011 and Tioga County had the redistricting process complete in preparation for the September 2011 primary elections. As we all know, the new 2020 decade was anything but typical or normal.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Census Bureau delayed completion of population count data until October of 2020. Because of that delay, the Census Bureau had no choice but to extend the timeline of their processing the population data. As a result, the Census Bureau did not release the population data to the States until late August 2021, and NYS turned around the data for localities to access in late September 2021. However, due to this significant delay, new population data could not be used for county legislature 2021 elections.
Further complicating this decade’s redistricting process were two new requirements placed on the local redistricting process. State legislation that passed in late October required that population equity must now be set at no more than 5% variation among districts, replacing the previous 10% requirement. Additionally, another new requirement brought forth by the NYS Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR) was to count incarcerated individuals at their place of residence before they were incarcerated, and not counted at the jail of residence on April 1, 2020, as the previous standard required. This Legislative Law section 83-m, which the NYS Legislature passed in 2011, resulted in a gain of 79 people to Tioga County’s population count, which is now LATFOR-adjusted at 48,534 for the 2020 Census.
Because of these aforementioned circumstances, Tioga County could not even start addressing the reshaping of county legislative districts until after the November 2 election. The first thing the County did after the election was to establish a 2021 Redistricting Committee, comprised of Peter DeWind, County Attorney, Elaine Jardine, County Planning Director, William Ostrander, County GIS Manager, Bryan Goodrich, County GIS Mapping Technician, and County Elections Commissioners Bernadette Toombs and James Wahls.
Tioga County’s 2021 Redistricting Committee (Committee) started work on reshaping the county legislative districts in late November 2021. The Committee discussed in which districts the represented population was over and under the 5% required restricted variation, and developed preliminary scenarios on how to fix the problem countywide. It was also determined at this time that Legislative District #7 in the northern portion of the county, could not be modified in any way because these town’s populations did not reach the population threshold to be able to split up the district. Districts that did need to be reshaped due to their higher population counts were numbers 5 Waverly and Barton, and 6 Spencer and Barton. District #4 Tioga and Nichols, was at such a population level that it was able to accept the over-count population from District #6. All districts, except District #7, were modified to some extent to achieve equal population and representation for each. It is important to note that the Committee conducted this redistricting work in a nonpartisan manner and strictly followed the NYS requirements for redistricting.
Tioga County’s GIS Department then worked with their customized application within our GIS system in ArcGIS Pro to help identify new county legislative district lines and develop two redistricting plan scenarios. These maps can be viewed on line using the following link:
https://tiogacountyny.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/sidebar/index.html?appid=2c928b1d2c2e4dcfb90fae6f5db0c5e8
The Committee then presented these two redistricting scenarios to the County Legislature at the December 14 Legal / Safety Legislative Committee meeting. After some discussion, the County Legislature chose to move forward with Scenario 1, because it did not force the creation of an additional election district or polling place, as was the case with Scenario 2.
Next steps in this redistricting process first includes drafting a redistricting local law creating these new county legislative district boundaries. The County Attorney’s office is now working on this draft local law, which should be presented to the Legislators before their January 6, 2022 special meeting. Then the County Legislature will introduce the local law and set the public hearing at this special meeting. The County Legislature will hold a public hearing on the new districts just prior to their regular meeting on January 11, 2022. Finally, if the decision is to adopt Scenario1, the County Legislature will vote on the new district boundaries at a special meeting tentatively scheduled for January 20, 2022.
In this manner and timetable, the new legislative district boundaries will be set for petition development ahead of the primary elections to be held in June, 2022.
For more information or questions regarding Tioga County’s redistricting process, please contact:
Elaine Jardine
County Planning Director
Phone: 607-687-8257
Email: [email protected]
