Huntington County
Huntington's county council districts have a population deviation of 18%, almost twice the allowable limit. One of the districts is also split in two by another district. Although the split is due to natural barriers, when the county redistricts they should be able to draw more compact districts.
- Overview
- Map
- Data
County Redistricting Overview
State law and state and federal court decisions require that local government districts be compact, contiguous, not cross precinct boundaries, and be as nearly equal in population as possible (usually with population deviation of less than 10%). To be in compliance, answers to each of the questions below should be "Yes".
Note: Other requirements regarding vote dilution and minority representation are not examined in this report.
| Were the districts based on the 2000 census in compliance with state law? | No. Two parts of District 2 were disconnected. | |
| Did the county redistrict after the 2010 census? |
Probably not, as the 2000 and 2010 maps appear to be identical. |
|
| Is the population deviation of the current districts less than 10%? | No. It is 18%. | |
| Are the current districts compact and contiguous? |
No. District 2 is in two pieces. They nearly meet at one point. The reason District 2 is bifurcated is that precinct Huntington 7A (in the city of Huntington) follows the contours of two rivers that come to a point (like a bird's beak) and split the southwest portion of District 3 from the northeast portion. |
|
| Is every precinct wholly contained within a single district? | Yes | |
2010 Census Data
In 2012, we were able to determine exact populations for each county council district by identifying which precincts (as drawn in 2011 by each county) were in which county council district. We were able to calculate precinct populations using the 2010 census as long as precincts contained whole census blocks, which they are supposed to do.
| District 1 | 10,118 | | | District 2 | 8,932 | | | District 3 | 9,665 | | | District 4 | 8,409 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total Population | 37,124 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Average District Population | 9,281 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Population Deviation | 18.4% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Population deviation is calculated by subtracting the smallest district from the largest district and dividing by the average district population. The maximum allowable deviation for local governments is 10%.