ART. II, SECTION 9. REDISTRICTING OF SUBDIVISIONS OF UNITS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND SCHOOL BOARDS
April 8, 2008 – 1:08 am(a) Districts, wards or other subdivisions (hereafter referred to as “districts”) of units of local government and school boards shall be compact, contiguous and substantially equal in population. All divisions, where possible, shall respect boundaries of cities and residential subdivisions.
(b) On August 1st, in the year following each Federal decennial census year (or within 6 months of a special census) the County Clerk for the division involved, or for units of local government that have territory in multiple counties, the County Clerk for the segment which contains the largest share of the population of the unit of local government (in cooperation with the other County Clerks of the other counties), shall redistrict by using a computer program or other automated system.
(c) The following factors shall be taken into consideration in drawing districts: population equality, contiguity, unity of cities and residential subdivisions, and compactness. The following factors shall be explicitly prohibited from being used in drawing 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 County Clerk shall publish the source code of the computer program or automated method that will be used for 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) The County Clerk will ensure that no less than two public hearings be held in which public hearing may be given on the proposed maps.
(f) By October 1st, the unit of local government and/or school board shall vote on the proposed maps. The unit of local government and/or school board shall have no power to change any districts. Unless opposed by two-thirds of the voting members of the unit of local government and/or school board, the maps shall become binding. If two-thirds of the voting members oppose the maps, the County Clerk shall create new computer-generated maps to be voted on within three months.
(g) If any map is declared unconstitutional or in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act, the County Clerk shall generate new computer-generated maps to be voted on within three months of a final ruling.
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