Decatur Voting Districts to Remain Unchanged for 2011 Elections
Allison | July 8, 2011As most of you astute and informed DM readers know, because the 2010 US census indicated a demographic shift in our town that has led to a 7.97% deviation between Decatur’s two voting districts, the City Commission is pondering amendments to the City Charter to redraw the districts for city elections to comply with the “one-person/one-vote standard” of the United States and Georgia Constitutions. According to the US Department of Justice standards, election districts should not exceed a 5% deviation.
It’s rather a big, complicated business, however. Due to the small window of time to get paperwork to the Department of Justice this year and the fact that more recent data indicates a mere 5.75% deviation between Districts 1 and 2, the city will continue to use its current district configurations for the 2011 elections.
The plan is to consider changes (most likely in August City Commission meetings) that will bring the deviation to less than 3%, to be enacted by Jan 1, 2012.
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So if I vote on the northside, does the current uncorrected situation mean that I’m getting 1.06 worth of a vote next election or 0.96 worth?
There are more voters in the northern district than there are in the southern district. So they have to reconfigure to put more voters in southern district. Right now, as one person, you’re getting more than one vote, you lucky devil.
My brain is not getting this one. So let’s say our population of 18,000 has 10,000 registered voters. If District 1 (northside I think) has 5,150 voters and District 2 has 4,850 and each District gets to elect 2 Commissioners, then my vote is only worth 2 X 1/5150 = 1/2575 of a commissioner whereas someone on the southside gets 2 X 1/4850 = 1/2425 of a commissioner which is greater. It looks to me like a southside vote carries more weight right now. (This is excluding issues of racial distribution which I guess have become more moot lately in Decatur.) Am I thinking about this right?
Yes! You are. I had it exactly backwards–less than one vote per person in northern. (Sorry–I shouldn’t do math on one cup of coffee.) It’s all here in DM’s original post:
http://www.decaturmetro.com/2011/05/16/decatur-voting-district-line-needs-to-be-pushed-north-majority-minority-district-no-longer-possible/
DM,
Perhaps you can set up an exchange whereby thos of us on the south side who are blessed with 0.000024 of extra commissioner (difference between 1/2425 and 1/4850) can trade our surplus with a northsider.
Right now I’m just trying to work out one could get for an entire commissioner so that I can determine my per share value…
Actually, I get .000025 but what’s .000001 worth of a Commissioner between friends?!
That’s true, Karass, but consider that the northside commissioners can really throw all that extra weight around. Feel the power?
Yeah, but you northerners make out like bandits on the at-large seat. Since the bulk of the citywide votes come from the Gulf of Mexico side of the continental divide, our at-large commish, Jim Baskett, really has to kiss up to you guys. He may be a neighbor to those of us on the other side of the tracks, but his bread is buttered by you folks over there whose primary function is to buffer us Southies from Emory.
Now I see the political implications. The at-large candidate may respond to the area with most voters. But that doesn’t seem true for the School Board elections.
There’s a brief article on Decatur Patch today about this. Until I read it, I somehow hadn’t understood that the Agnes Scott area was in District 1 with the northside. Boy, those districts were creative, although I understand why they were needed to give the then mostly African-American south Decatur area some representation. Wonder how the move will affect politics? When it comes to school districts, Agnes Scott area represents the traditional Winnona Park vote which will now be merged in with the traditional Fifth Avenue, College Heights, and Oakhurst vote.