Short Turnaround Making A Difficult Redistricting Year For Counties

County leaders are expecting a challenging redistricting year with the Comptroller’s Office asking them to be ready to move fast.

The incoming census data will determine the the future of districts. Overton County Executive Ben Danner said with those numbers being delayed until September, he is unsure the county will be able to reach the January deadline.

“This year I personally don’t see how we are going to be able to do it in time,” Danner said. “In the past, we get census numbers maybe in March of the year that we got to redistrict, and it still seemed like we were really rushed.”

White County Executive Denny Wayne Robinson said he is already preparing by creating a redistricting committee at the next county commission meeting.

“Turnaround will be a challenge,” Robinson said. “I think December 31st is when you have to have it completed by, and we haven’t gotten any information yet. They’re talking maybe September. I am hearing even October.”

Danner said redistricting is one of the hardest things to accomplish in county government. Danner said he is expecting big changes with large growth in the Rickman area.

“We’ve had unprecedented growth in the Rickman area,” Danner said. “We have had several hundred new houses built, so I think we may have to add another district and more commissioners or we may have to divide the districts out completely different.”

Robinson said he believes White County has significantly grown and expects some districts to become smaller.

“The main thing is you can’t move an elected official out of their district,” Robinson said. “You got to make sure when you redraw the lines that whoever is representing that area whether it be a county commissioner or even all the way to federal representation. They can’t be moved out of their district, so that is probably the biggest issue, but here locally in White County, we don’t have any commissioners close to the line, so we should be okay.”

Danner said he will also create a committee tasked with the redistricting process. Danner said one of his concerns is residents’ reactions to possibly being in a new district.

“You don’t go off roads you go off census blocks, so you might go across the road and one person on one side of the road is in one district and somebody on the other side is in another,” Danner said. “You got to try and make each district between five percent of each other population wise. Like the Hanging Limb district up on the mountain, the district itself size wise is bigger, but there are a lot more properties. It is hard to divide that out with Rickman. which has several subdivisions.”

Danner said he was wanting a hold harmless year when it came to redistricting. Danner said accuracy of the census during a year of COVID is a concern.