Kvaran: I have concerns about Arizona's political redistricting process
Posted
Your community, your voice
What do you think about this important topic?
Join the civil community discussion in the comments below or email your ideas and opinions to: aznews@newszap.com.
Letter submitted by Einar Kvaran of Sun City
It seems to me the Arizona election auditors know how everyone in Maricopa County voted. Every ballot has a number on it and they know who received and cast that ballot. If the purpose of the audit is not to overturn the election (we have been told that this is the case), then what is the real point of the audit? No surprise, I have an opinion.
Twenty-twenty was a census year. One of the reasons for the census is to determine who gets to elect Arizona’s 9 representatives to the U.S. House in Washington, as well as the House and Senate in our state government.
It was felt by many before the census that population increases here would award us a 10th seat in Congress, this does not seem to be the case. Arizona has a population of over 7 million, the Phoenix greater metropolitan area (mostly in Maricopa County) has about 5 million, so most of Arizona’s Representatives will be elected from around here.
So, you might ask (if you are still reading) how are the representative districts drawn up, because they change after each census? Well, there is a group called the Independent Redistricting Commission, which is tasked with starting from scratch and drawing up the districts. There are federal guidelines (each district will have, within 1%, the same number of people in it is an important one) as well as state requirements.
The commission consists of five members, two Republicans, two Democrats and an Independent chairperson. The chair is picked from a group of five nominated by some group or another, all of whom must be registered with the state as Independents.
An interesting side story is that the Democrats tried to get one person removed from the list because he had thrown a Trump fundraiser before the 2020 election; but a judge, originally appointed by a Republican governor, said that as long as he was registered as an Independent, there was no conflict of interest. Anyway, he was not picked to be the chair.
Now this group, armed with the knowledge of how everyone in Maricopa County voted, is going to redraw our election map. It should be interesting to follow, and if you intend to do so, be sure and look up gerrymandering first.
