Monday afternoon while a torrential rain poured down on Homer, in the bluffs above town a light fog faded away and let the sun shine on the Storyknife Writers Retreat for a long-delayed open house.
Credit KBBI
With the U.S. Census largely complete, it’s time now for the Alaska Redistricting Board to redraw house and senate districts, boundaries that will be in use for the next decade.
Peter Torkelson is the executive director of the Redistricting Board. He gave an introduction to the process to the Homer City Council this week.
“You know, redistricting is a messy process. There s usually litigation involved and why do it? Well, the reason we do it is because the U S and Alaska constitutions. Require that to the degree possible, we have one person, one vote. So if people move out of a district, then your vote would have more impact and more people move to your district, then your vote would be diluted,” Torkelson said. “So every 10 years we have to draw new lines to make up for the fact that people move in and out of Alaska a lot.”