Editor:
Last week Fair Districts PA published preliminary state House and Senate redistricting maps and asked voters to make comments until Nov. 7.
After incorporating suggestions if possible, the organization will send the finished maps to the Legislative Reapportionment Commission as an example of what they would like the maps to accomplish.
The maps should be compact, contiguous, contain no more splits in political subdivisions than absolutely necessary and exhibit equal population.
The maps should adhere to the requirements of the Voting Rights Act, which states that sufficiently populous, compact and politically cohesive cultural entities should not have their voting rights diminished through redistricting.
The preliminary maps proposed by Fair Districts PA adhere to these criteria but go a step further, following public opinion. School districts, where possible, are kept intact unless doing so would necessitate a county split.
Additionally, because Pennsylvania has a natural partisan bias due to the geography of the state, Fair Districts PA maps attempt to increase competitiveness in areas where this is possible while adhering to other criteria.
It is time for the LRC to release its criteria for their maps.
Because it is difficult to compare maps that use different criteria for success, mappers around the state would like as much notice as possible in order to possibly compose maps that use LRC criteria in order to make the best maps possible this cycle.
Patricia Rooney
Honey Brook
Source: Berkshire mont
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