City's voting district alterations precleared

The United States Department of Justice recently signed off on the City of Auburn's proposed redistricting plan.

With preclearance awarded, the redistricting plan is now official. The new ward boundaries will be in effect for the 2014 municipal election. Local, state and national elections before 2014 will use existing ward boundaries.

The plan's most significant changes pertain to the expansion of District 1, historically the city's only minority district.

The change will increase the overall minority population in Ward 1, represented by Arthur Dowdell, by 4 percent to 52 percent and increases the voting age (18 and over) minority population by 4 percent to 44 percent.

It requires the removal of areas nearer the geographic center of the ward and the addition of areas well away from the center and beyond well-defined boundaries, such as Shug Jordan Parkway.

"We were trying to be particularly sensitive to the minority majority issue," said City Planning Director Forrest Cotton. "If you look at the new district boundaries, you'll see where we pulled in some areas off Shug Jordan where there were some fairly minority-heavy tracts and we were able to bring them into Ward 1.

The plan achieves an overall majority minority district, although it will not do so for the voting age minority population.

According to Cotten, Ward 1 did not have a minority majority voting age population before the change was made.

The 2010 census cited Auburn as having a total population of 53,380 and a minority population of 13,331. With eight wards, the ideal population is 6,672 people per district.

Under the new plan, the population of District 1 will increase from 5,172 to 6,523, while the population of Districts 3 and 7 will decrease from 8,297 to 6,632 and 9,115 to 6,749, respectively. Overall, half of the districts will see a decrease in population (Districts 2, 3, 7 and 8), and the other half, an increase.

Modifications to districts must be compliant with DOJ guidelines primarily concerned with various aspects of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the impact of redistricting on minority voters. The 2011 Redistricting Plan must also gain approval from the DOJ through a preclearance approval process, which will use the City's 2001 redistricting plan as the benchmark for its evaluation.

The proposal process began in the summer of 2011 and was voted upon by the City Council initially in the Oct. 18 meeting. Unanimous consent was denied by Dowdell because he had additional questions about the plan.

Dowdell later gave his approval for the change in the Nov. 1 meeting and the plan took the next step. It was submitted in mid-November for preclearance by the DOJ. Approximately 60 days later, it was returned with approval.

Cotten said, overall, the process went smoothly.

"The resources we have available to us in terms of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) has so drastically advanced. I wasn't here when it had to be done in 2000, but I'm sure it was a much more laborious effort because it was all drawn out. Now, we can go on the GIS and play around with different tracts and play with the numbers," Cotten said. "Because of that, it was quite easy."