Travis County Commissioners Court
August 15, 2006
Item 28
28. Consider and take appropriate action regarding modifications to certain Travis County election precincts to conform to the u.s. District court order plan 1438 c.
>> good morning, Commissioners. [indiscernible] dolores, registration voter. [indiscernible] on my right, melinda and I havevy putting up the large map for you now.
>> most you know, on August 4th of the united states district court, for the eastern district of Texas, adopted plan 1438 c, that -- that pretty much redrew several congressional districts in Texas. One of the ones that affects us it's congressional district 25. Which is -- which is lloyd doggett's district. What happened essentially is we got an order for the -- from the u.s. District court as a result of the supreme court ruling telling us to redraw the lines in time for the November 7th election. That -- that tell us that we have got to enact these changes pretty quickly, which is why we are bringing it up for you today. Normally this process takes six to eight months in the works because we get lots of public input from election judges, we seek input from neighborhood organizations. We didn't have time to do that today. Because we don't have a choice. This is an order for us to -- to follow. I have been in touch with the secretary of state's office. And -- thank you. Have been in touch with the secretary of state's office, received approval to enact these changes immediately after you have approved them. Essentially what we have, I would like to bring your attention to the big board, you do have a small blown up map of the same map but only of the boundaries that are affected. If you follow the pink line, the pink area, that's now congressional district 25. Congressional district 21 is in blue, light blue, and congressional district 10 is in white, which is mike mccall's district. District 10 did not change. It stayed intact. What this order required us to do was to pull precincts or pull population, if you will, from the blue to the pink. What that entailed was you've got a small map showing you just the areas that were touched, that would require a split in the precincts. What I want to share with you today, that pulling from the blue to the pink results in 56 election precincts and this is the final. I'm -- I'm looking at this chart here. You should have it as part of your backup. Julie provided copies for you all.
>> let's get --
>> okay. All right. [multiple voices]
>> the precincts of which we are drawing voters from district 21 to 25. [inaudible - no mic]
>> the -- the transfer is -- resulting in 96,000 voters, which is about, you know, 1/5th of the Travis County registration count. Of these precincts, the 56 precincts, I did a count for you by Commissioner of precinct. In other words, if you follow along, Commissioner of precinct 2 is a split precinct. Of which we count two because I will explain to you in a minute why I had to, we had to -- to split that precinct and create a brand new one. There are 25 precincts, whole precincts in Commissioner precinct 3. There's 14 splits in Commissioner precinct 3, there are 13 whole precincts in Commissioner precinct 4, and then a split that requires a brand new precinct in Commissioner precinct 4. So all in all --
>> these go from the blue to the pink.
>> to the pink, yes, sir.
>> 21 to 25. That's the only area that was pulled. Congressional district 10, the white, is intact.
>> okay.
>> okay. This affects again 96,000 voters. The whole precincts, this includes all -- the 96,000 includes the wholes and the splits. Our county attorney has advised us to send these split precincts because there are boundary line changes there, to the u.s. Justice department for preclearance. But again note that we have got to make these changes right away so we can enact them by the end of this month to the county clerk's office can lock the ballot down and get ready to send overseas ballots to requested voters. What we are going to plan to do is immediately after you approve these, we plan to send -- make the changes immediately in our data base file, and send voter certificates to 96,000 voters. 3,000 of the 96,000 will have polling place changes. So that's a small number of the full 96. All 96 need to have voter certificates, what they notice on the card that will say, please note that either your congressional district or your precinct number may have changed. So that's the notice that we will be sending out to eliminate voter confusion or at least try to limit it.
>> so -- so if somebody calls from precinct 1, Commissioner of precinct 1, we should tell them that there were no changes.
>> absolutely correct.
>> when you are voting.
>> Commissioner precinct 1 untouched, right.
>> okay.
>> all right. If.
>> if I could just share with you, why we are having to -- to create two new precincts. The good news is that prnlt 2 is the -- precinct 2 is the split no voters affected at all. If you look at your small map, I will look at precinct 274. On this map, it's right over here. What the judges did they didn't look at Commissioner precinct lines, j.p. Lines, they just looked at congressional districts, that was their charge, what happens here is we are socked in by j.p. Lines and congressional lines, we can't move that area to an adjoining precinct because we would be crossing a line and that's -- that's illegal to do. So we have to create a brand new precinct, that new precinct number is called 272. It will be new. And just for references purposes, this is hemphill park. So hemphill park is a precinct with no voters. But we do have to note it as such. Precinct 445, is right underneath that here, 445 was drawn around the Travis County courthouse, the governor's mansion, is where the congressional line is. Between 21 and 25. If you will look at this map, it's right in -- right here. I don't know if you can see the red line here, but it's split in pink and in blue. So what we need to do, since it's socked in by the -- I know the congressional line for sure, the congressional and j.p. Line, I can't move them to the -- because that's precinct 2. A different congressional district because that was split in half. So it needs to be its own precinct. What we through elections has recommended that the new polling place for the new precinct 444, correct me if I'm wrong, 444, goes to the Austin city hall, that will be the new polling location. 445 stays the Travis County courthouse.
>> did we ask for the governor's mansion? [laughter] it stayed in congressional 21 by the way.
>> okay. So there used to be a precinct 444 up on matagorda runs right through it. Has that number changed then?
>> right.
>> that number changed during one -- the redistricting to a Commissioner precinct. We are reusing the number 444.
>> recycling over a period of about 15 years, they kind of start to appear again.
>> I have to start my memorizing those [indiscernible]
>> the lofts and things that are going in down in kind of that second street, third street, fourth street, quite frankly it's probably one that we can start building that 444 up anyway, because that's where a lot of -- probably a split that was going to have to happen anyway.
>> I think -- I have another attachment for you. And I believe it was stapled to this. It looks like this. It's got the registered vote seal at the corner and this explains to you in detail and to the just department exactly where, what areas we are moving, how many voters are affected, what the count was before the split and after the split and pretty much why, it's all because of the congressional redistricting plan for 1438 c. I can go over that in detail with you. Or spend time with you later. It's up to you. I just felt the need to explain the two brand new precincts. [one moment please for change in captioners] what am I to tell them to contact as far as a contact person as far as these particular modification changes and how it will impact them regardless of where they live in Travis County? How and who do they contact on this stuff?
>> I would say contact the Travis County tax office at 854-9473. The call center will direct them to the right person. I would give them my direct number, but I want to give them an immediate answer and I may be away from the desk for awhile working on a lot of this. So I'd rather they just call the tax office. They will either guide the call to melinda, myself or one of my staff members or to the election office if it's a polling place office. I might add they want to do a media release as soon as we get court approval. We do want to post the notice and all this on our website, on the Travis County tax.org website and ask for it to be posted on the county's main website as well and we'll say where to contact fows more information, nefk specific information. On that Monday on the seventh we got lots of calls.
>> you did?
>> yes, sir, what's happening, when it the map going to be ready? Can get we get a list of voters. Potential candidates have until August 25th to file. Because this is a primary election for this race. It is a primary election for all of the ones that were affected, and if they don't win by more than 51% of the vote, there will be a runoff on December 12th. Because November 7th is considered a primary election for this race. So if they don't win by 51% of the vote, we will be working December 12th to host the runoff for the candidate that didn't win by that percentage of the vote. There just wasn't enough time to hold a primary before December 11th essentially.
>> so November 7th is the primary for the places affected by the lawsuit. And the general for all the other elections.
>> yes, sir. It will be -- it's going to be a primary general special election I believe is the correct title to it. So you see why we want to get certificates in the mail rather quickly. My staff has been working hard to get the changes enacted. We're trying to make sense tf for you. And then getting notices to the voters is most important of all.
>> after this order we'll have to have you consider these two ores for readopting precinct lines for election of jp's and constable as well for the Commissioner courts precincts.
>> and that's my presentation unless have you any questions for me.
>> this cesar chavezzer, and I don't think that's correct.
>> thank you. We'll do that. Thank you. Unless have you other questions for me. We certainly wanted to host, as is county tradition, the public input process, and I believe that's why it was added as a separate agenda item.
>> would you state that number again?
>> 854-9473 and they'll get help immediately.
>> thank you.
>> it would make sense for us to call up the public hearing at this time, see if somebody is here to give comments, then take action on the 28th, wouldn't it?
>> right.
>> then let's leave 28 open.
now let's go back to number 28, and we have several ores before us -- several orders before us. The first one is order adopting county election precinct boundary alignments in accordance with the congressional redistricting plan 1438 c, and what this does is what you just set out basically as to the change in the three Commissioner precincts o and number 1.
>> move approval.
>> seconded by Commissioner Sonleitner. Comments, questions? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you very much.
>> there are a couple others here, right? The next one is -- the 2006 reorder adopting the county Commissioner precincts. Move approval?
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. And our third, and this is the final one, is August 2006 order readopting precincts for the election of justices of the peace and constables.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor?
>> can I ask a question? This is moving pretty fast, and I don't know that any of us have thought a lot about redistricting other than the congressional redistricting because that's what's really been on the map. But it sounds like that we're also now starting to talk about everything from commission to Commissioners to jp's to constables to all of that, judge. Is that some of what we're going through?
>> yes, sir. What happens is whenever a precinct is split, and because, as I mentioned -- I main have mentioned. The justices did not look at Commissioner or jp lines, they were just looking at trying to settle the population differences, making congressional 25 more compact. Soond what they did is they went in and said do the census blocks. They weren't looking at precinct lines. And they said if we move this here and this here we have the right population count, the right minority counts because they did look at that. Then this is how we think it should go, only using census blocks. So we then get the order, we get the map, and we look at these precincts, and 14 of them are split right in half. Or as in hemphill park, the county courthouse, it's kind of jagged through there. So we have to apply state law that says you can't cross a jp line, an existing jp line that was approved prior by you all. You can't cross a Commissioner lane, you can't cross at a time senate, legislative or congressional. So what happens is when we look at those cuts, then what we try to do is move move 2-d voters into the adjoining precinct soz that we're in line by state and federal law. And that's what we were able to do. We were able to move them, keeping under the five thousand count was the law that was changed last year per precinct, so we're looking at that very carefully, making sure that we follow the law as it's set out. What happens is because the justices are others that are looking at one whole plan. They don't look at all the intricate details here. That's our job to make sure that Commissioner precincts are wholly within those five, the big five as we say, yp, Commissioner, legislative, gnat and congressional. Senate. They've got to stay whole within those particular districts whavment necessity did is they didn't look at that. They just looked at census blocks, population, are minority counts. And they they did what they did. And they looked at it and said gorks now we've got to go split precinct. Now we've got to go to the justice department because they want to know every time a boundary gets split, specifically when you're moving voters out of one pocket to another by the voting acts right requirement, I believe.
>> I understand how complicated it is for us to redraw lines, I mean, even when you get below the congressional lines. I am most often asked, for example, why is it, Commissioner, that you have 48% of Travis County as precinct 3?
>> land.
>> land. But I have to get a motel room to drive across precinct 3. I mean, it is very difficult to take that on. And only recently have I started understanding the difference in the jp lines were population. I mean, we've got the jp of precinct 2 that's got 254,000 people. We've got jp 1 that has 120,000 people. We have jp 4 that has 134,000 people. And we have jp 3 that has 236,000 people. I mean, it's the craziest thing I've ever seen. The workloads that we incumbersome people with is just nuts. I would love to take politics out of everything, but unfortunately you cannot. I want to tell you it's not just the congressional lines and distribution that are confusing and that seem very unfair and unfortunate to people, but the more you're in this, the more you start realizing that there are a lot of inequities about this whole thing with what they call map drawing and representation of folks. So I realize that we probably -- from when I understand, maybe legally, julie, tell us, can Commissioners redraw lines other than every 10 years with the census? Or are Commissioner court lines only drawn every 10 years with the census count?
>> I don't know the answer to that. I haven't really researched the issue, but I can certainly research it and get back to you.
>> I thought it was once every 10 years.
>> Gerald, the answer is yes add no. The answer is yes indeed we can redraw those lines. The problem is we are stuck using the 2000 census data. Because of change in population, we're not able to do midyear census updates to move things around. Related to the jp lines, jp 2 actually got larger jaws jp 2 asked that certain areas be added on to their area. They used to not cross the river, so all that Lakeway stuff was put in by that person's request and it was also taken out of precinct 3 by that jp's request. So that was something this was negotiated with the jp's get whag they chose. But the court will need to look at that very carefully because we've had jp 2 now goes Lakeway all the way out to Pflugerville, which I think is stretching the bounds of stuff.
>> but right now we've got an order that does not acknowledge that precinct 444 exists for Commissioners court for Commissioner go approximate mez's on the ballot come November and we need to acknowledge it doesn't mean as much, but there is no precinct 2 few, although there's no voters. We have to readopt or to move all this stuff around. Margaret is still representing the very same people, I'm still representing the very same people, it just acknowledges these line changes, but it's going to be interesting come 2010 when the new census numbers come out and I think our jp's have been telling us that it's probably less about how do you resubdivide all the people. It's a requestion of are we reaching a point of where a jp 6 is justified? And that's an interesting question that will come up in the future.
>> judge, I've just been asked to hold up on the vote because apparently judge gibbon wants to come and talk, but she can't get here to talk about on the jp precinct 3, whether or not -- I don't know what she wants to scrks but I've been asked to have her come down and say something. This is how confusing this is.
>> the lines don't change.
>> not for jp 3 at all.
>> I haven't talked to her this morning. I think she's probably watch thg.
>> why don't you call. We might need delay this until later this afternoon. Let's do that. Can you call her?
>> I'll give her a call and find out.
>> if she's in court, my guess is she's available over lunch. If can you iron it out, fine. If not, we'll listen it to this afternoon and call it up at 1:30.
>> I will call her. At this point again it's just congressional district 25. We're for the dealing with any other issue other than the court order the court at this point, okay.
>> so we have acted on the orders except for the one readopting the lines for the justice of the peace and constables. Okay? Which we'll plan to call up this afternoon.
>> very good. Thank you.
item 28 we discussed this morning and 28 is to consider and take appropriate action on proposed election precinct realignments pursuant to section 42.031-b-1 of the election code to conform to congressional redistricting plan 1438-c, and the issues that were outstanding have been resolved if they existed. And we approved two of the orders, but we did not approve the order adopting precincts for the election of justices of the peaces and constables and I move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor? That carries fans unanimously. Thank y'all. That does it for that item.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 16, 2006 12:08 PM