News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Overton County Redistricting Committee selected a map to send to the full county commission for approval.
County Executive Ben Danner said roughly 700 people will be in new districts.
Danner said the majority of map changes were people being taken from Rickman and moved into District Three, the “Mountain” District. Some residents from District Three were moved into District Two containing Allons and Monroe.
“This plan moved as few of people as possible,” Danner said. “It didn’t move any county commissioners from where they’re at now. It didn’t move any school board members from where they’re at now. So no plan is perfect, but this is the plan that moves the least amount of people.”
Danner said the only way around there being map movement would require adding a 6th district. Danner said that residents with questions about their voting precinct should call his office.
The Redistricting Committee will meet once more on October 18 at 4:00 PM, before the map goes to the county commission for approval. The Overton County Commission will meet at 5:00 PM to vote on the map.
Danner said that while there were changes in every district except District One, containing Livingston. Danner said residents should stay calm until they see the map.
He said the change will actually make reaching voting places easier for some.
“They moved 35 people out of the third district into the fifth district,” Danner said. “But that’s in Copeland Cove and those people, it probably helped them. Nobody wants to move districts when you’ve been used to voting some place for a long time. But some people were driving a long way to go to a voting precinct and this moved those people closer to Fairgrounds.”
Danner said he and the committee hoped that this would have less of an effect than 10 years ago, since more people early vote. Danner said this was a much smoother redistricting than when he was a commissioner during that time.
“I know 10 years ago a lot of people were upset because some of the voting precincts got shut down in Hardys Chapel and Independence,” Danner said. “But this time they’re not looking at doing that.”
Danner said the moves were to keep the county within a 10 percent population difference between the largest and smallest district. He said the committee was able to get that number to roughly six percent.
