Coconino County Springing into Redistricting in March

Representation is fundamental to our representative democracy. We citizens associate in political parties, nominate candidates and elect them to represent us. This important cornerstone of our political system includes the need to assign each of our representatives with an area and set of voters to represent. This process is known as redistricting.

For the state legislature and U.S. Congress, the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission completes the process of redistricting. The Commission completed its work by adopting final maps for state legislative and congressional districts in January 2022. However, counties have until July 2022 to complete local redistricting for boards of supervisors.

The law requires each county board of supervisors to divide Coconino County into five supervisory districts following the release of U.S. Census data every 10 years. Boards of supervisors must divide each district equally according to state and federal law, with no population difference greater than 10%, according to the state standard.

The Coconino County Board of Supervisors will complete this process in March. Supervisors must adhere to guidelines they adopted in September 2021, in addition to state and federal law requirements. They include preserving communities of interest, drawing compact and contiguous districts, maintaining traditional geographic and political boundaries and avoiding diluting the voting strength of racial and language minority groups.

The Board must also equalize the districts by not splitting voting precincts. Each of the guidelines is meant to avoid gerrymanders and to ensure the principle of one person, one vote is upheld, where citizens have a fair chance to choose their political candidate without using the process to punish incumbents or certain political parties.

To impact this process, it helps to understand how the Board of Supervisors will undertake redistricting. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, Coconino County’s population is 145,101. To calculate the equal population between districts, you divide 145,101 by five supervisory districts. This makes the equal population standard 29,020 people. The Board of Supervisors may deviate from this population target by 5% in either direction. This makes the target range for equal population between each district 27,569 to 30,471.

A Special Session of the Board to consider proposed maps occurred on March 2. Coconino County will then seek public input on proposed maps throughout March via four virtual redistricting outreach meetings. At the outreach meetings, citizens can provide input on proposed maps and inform their supervisors of their opinion. Citizens can also provide input directly to redistricting@coconino.az.gov.

The Board completes this process by adopting a final map that meets these requirements following public input. The Board of Supervisors plans to adopt final maps on April 12. After new maps are adopted as part of redistricting, candidates for the Coconino County Board of Supervisors will run in the new districts in 2024.

To stay informed and learn more about Coconino County’s redistricting process, please visit our website at coconino.az.gov/redistricting. FBN

By Trey Williams 

Trey Williams is the public affairs director for Coconino County.