Some voting precinct boundaries will change this year as state and local officials continue an Ohio Legislature-ordered redistricting plan.

Tuesday, January 25, 2000

Some voting precinct boundaries will change this year as state and local officials continue an Ohio Legislature-ordered redistricting plan.

"It won’t be drastic," Lawrence County Board of Elections director Mary Wipert said.

Some residents living near existing precinct boundaries might find themselves in another voting precinct because redistricting must coordinate new lines with census tract or physical boundaries, Mrs. Wipert said.

"Several years ago, the state legislature said we had to use roads, rivers, anything physical to separate precincts," she said.

Ohio University and the University of Akron were contracted by the state to draw maps once county election officials draw new lines.

Mrs. Wipert foresees few complications because of new precinct maps, especially to voters.

"The thing about it is, we have so many polling places with so many precincts in them," she said. "So, they may be going to the same polling place but be in a different precinct."

For example, four precincts vote at Kingsbury Elementary and voters in those precincts will vote there, even if there are a few extra or a few less.

Still, residents should see little movement in lines. Many precincts are already bounded by physical lines, Mrs. Wipert said.

The idea came from legislators’ and state officials’ desires to organize voters as blocks of population and associate geographical areas with those blocks, she said.

"They can’t judge that by not having natural lines," she added.

But, the Legislature decided to require the changes be finished by August this year, after a primary and before a presidential election, which makes it more difficult.

"We can get the maps done, but I’m just not sure if we can have all those people moved," Mrs. Wipert said.

Each voter must be notified of his voting precinct by mail, and there must be changes to computer databases and lots of paperwork, she said.

"I can’t understand why they can’t draw the maps then move the people at the first of 2001," she added.

Mrs. Wipert also foresees some change in the political makeup of precincts, but not dramatic changes because redistricting will only affect a small percentage of the total voters registered.