ART. IV, SECTION 3. LEGISLATIVE REDISTRICTING
April 16, 2008 – 6:01 am(a) Legislative Districts shall be compact, contiguous and substantially equal in population. Representative Districts shall be compact, contiguous, and substantially equal in population. United States Congressional Districts shall be compact, contiguous, and substantially equal in population. All legislative boundaries, where possible, shall respect the boundaries of counties and cities.
(b) On August 1st, in the year following each Federal decennial census year, the State Board of Elections shall redistrict the Legislative Districts, Representative Districts and the United States Congressional Districts by using a computer program or other automated system. Legislative and Representative Districts shall be drawn independent of each other. The practice of containing two
Representative Districts inside the same Legislative District is banned.
(c) The following factors shall be taken into consideration in drawing Legislative, Representative and United States Congressional Districts in the following order or priority: population equality, contiguity, unity of counties and cities, and compactness. The following factors shall be explicitly prohibited from being used in drawing legislative and representative districts: voting patterns, party affiliation of voters, party of incumbent or current office-holder, and campaign contributions of voters.
(d) One year prior to any redistricting, the State Board of Elections shall publish the source code of the computer program or automated method that will be used for the redistricting. If no open-source option is available for the task, the source code shall be audited by no less than two independent auditing firms capable of the task to ensure the program complies with the requirements of this section. The results of the audit shall be made public one-year prior to any redistricting.
(e) After August 1st, no less than three public hearings shall be held in which public input may be given on the proposed maps.
(f) By October 1st, the General Assembly shall vote on the proposed maps. The maps will become binding unless two-thirds of each chamber votes against them by record vote. Should the General Assembly vote down the generated maps, the State Board of Elections shall create new computer-generated maps by December 1st. At least three more public hearings shall be held to discuss the new maps and by February 1st of the following year the General Assembly shall vote on the new maps.
(g) If, by two-thirds votes in both chambers, the General Assembly strikes down the second computer-generated maps, the State Board of Elections shall generate a new set of maps by April 1st. The third set of computer-generates maps shall then become law without any vote in the General Assembly.
(h) If any map is declared unconstitutional or in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act, the State Board of Elections shall generate new computer-generated maps.
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