And your district is . . .

Expect your voting district to change this year. It’s time for redistricting, the once-every-10-year process of realigning voting districts to make sure that the districts are as similar in size as humanly possible.

It all hearkens back to the “one person, one vote” ideal. And it’s almost certain that King George County’s voting districts will change because one indicator suggests they’re not even close to being of similar size.

When redistricting was last done, based on 2000 Census data, the districts had the following populations:

James Madison: 4,087

James Monroe: 4,338

Shiloh: 4,272

Dahlgren: 4,106

Those numbers reflected residents in each of the districts, and the totals were pretty close.

There’s no way to tell what the population was per district in 2010 because Census data hasn’t been reported yet.

But here’s another clue—the number of registered voters on Jan. 12, 2011:

James Madison: 3,618

James Monroe: 4,737

Shiloh: 2,995

Dahlgren: 2,644

If the population of those districts falls along similar lines, county districts are sure to change.

Supervisors and staff will be preparing GIS maps based on Census data in the months to come. Citizens will be asked to provide their comments, probably in April.  New boundaries must be in place by Sept. 7, then voters will get notices about changes to their district by mid-October.

Redistricting will have an impact on King George and every other county in Virginia. There are still a lot of unknowns, at least for candidates who might be interested in seeking office this year. Here’s a story from Sunday that details some of the questions raised by King George’s own, Joe Grzeika.

Permalink: http://news.fredericksburg.com/kinggeorge/2011/01/25/and-your-district-is/