December 31, 2003
A couple of redistricting links

Rob Booth has pointers to two stories that I've overlooked which are worth reading. Here he found this story in which US Rep. Max Sandlin (D, Marshall) predicts that the courts will overturn the new Congressional map, and here he found the reason why you haven't gotten your new voter's reg card yet.


Voter registration certificates, or cards, that are usually mailed between Nov. 15 to Dec. 6 will not be in the mail until after Jan. 11, 2004.

Due to the redistricting plan adopted by the Texas Legislature, a Three-Judge Federal Panel has ordered all county voter registrars to delay the issuance of the voter registration certificates. The court did not include a specific deadline for the registration certificates to be issued; however, the Texas Secretary of State has advised county registrars to mail the certificates as soon as possible beginning on Jan. 11.

All Texas counties have been instructed to redraw county election precinct lines if new precincts are required to conform with the redistricting plan which affects only 28 counties.


I didn't know that, either. Not sure why unaffected counties have to redraw precinct lines - that seems unnecessary to me. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I seem to recall that the state didn't set aside any money to the counties to offset the cost of all this. That would be typical of the Perry/Craddick mindset if so.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on December 31, 2003 to Killer D's | TrackBack
Comments

The reason NOBODY gets to send out new cards is that the courts might change the lines rather than simply rejecting or accepting the maps. This means that other counties could be cut up, forcing new precincts on them. This would, it is safe to say, add to the confusion, since those counties would then have to send out new cards to replace the old new cards.

Posted by: precinct1233 on December 31, 2003 5:14 PM