Author: Gary O. Bartlett, Executive Director & Marc Burris, CIO
This office has previously communicated to County Boards of Elections that you must take the necessary steps to assign voters in your county to their proper legislative and congressional districts. The North Carolina General Assembly approved changes to the N.C. House, N.C. Senate and the state’s Congressional Maps on July 27 and 28, 2011. These plans were precleared by the United States Department of Justice on November 1, 2011 (curative changes were precleared on December 8, 2011). As such, county boards of elections must proceed with implementing these changes for purposes of all future elections involving these jurisdictions. County boards of elections must complete their redistricting changes by Feb. 1, 2012, in order to allow for state-level auditing prior to the start of candidate filing on Feb. 13, 2012.
While the statewide voter registration database system and its associated applications has greatly streamlined the administration of many election tasks, the system cannot fully supplant the responsibility of county boards to maintain the data within your local databases. See G.S. § 163-82.11(d) (“Each county board of elections shall enter through the computer system all additions, deletions, and changes in its list of registered voters promptly to the statewide computer system.”) Although county board suggestions to improve the mechanics of the voter registration database system are welcome, suggestions, to the degree they are practicable, cannot be impulsively implemented. All changes to the SEIMS system must be carefully studied, developed, and tested. In essence, enhancements to SEIMS take time. Irrespective of time, any proposal that suggests that we knowingly allow inaccurate data to be introduced into the voter registration database system will not be allowed by this agency.
To begin implementing the redistricting changes, you must obtain a copy of the new redistricting plans and associated documents that affect your county’s jurisdictions. These maps can be obtained from the Legislative Services Office with the N.C. General Assembly. You may also view plan information online. You will need to review the redistricting information carefully. If you need help, you are encouraged to work with your county’s GIS department.
Making Redistricting Changes
To begin making changes, take the following steps:
- Update and complete any necessary geocode changes in your county that are not related to redistricting and then apply the clone.
- After you have applied all non-redistricting geocode changes, print the “Geocode Listing by Street Report” in Report Manager (under the Geocode Information heading).
- Create new clone for purposes of redistricting and give the clone a meaningful name. (Example: Redistricting 2012-1. It is conceivable during the redistricting process that you will have more than one clone.)
- Begin entering redistricting geocode changes based on your review and assessment of the new plans. You may do this by either utilizing mass changes or by updating individual street ranges.
- Once all changes are entered, apply the redistricting geocode clone.
- For retention and recovery purposes, print the geocode street and voter changes reports that are available in the Geocode Application.
Auditing
The State Board of Elections will provide counties with the capability to audit redistricting changes on a weekly basis, starting January 3, 2012. This process will mirror the precinct verification process that was distributed to all counties in March of 2011. We will provide you with an updated memorandum regarding this verification process at a later date, but for reference, please see the attached document that was shared with counties in March. Note, this audit will identify any voter in the NC House, Senate or Congressional Districts that appears to be out of district. When this functionality becomes available, you may also use it to assist you in making redistricting changes. The audit will not identify changes sitting in an active clone; you must first apply the clone before we can audit your changes.
Recovery
In the event that it is necessary to revert to any prior redistricting plan, counties can utilize information from the “Geocode Listing by Street Report” that was printed prior to creating the redistricting clone. In essence, you will need to create a new clone for this purpose and enter the prior redistricting data. Yes, this again would be a manual process.
Please be sure that you keep good notes of all changes that you make as a result of redistricting and/or for non-redistricting purposes. Any issues that arise outside of this process can be handled on a county by county basis by contacting the SEIMS HelpDesk.
↓ Procedures for Handling Redistricting Changes in SEIMS: Numbered Memo 2011-05 (PDF)