Iowa City City Council Designates New Voting Precincts

The Iowa City Council gave its stamp of approval for a new voting precinct map Tuesday night.

The unanimously approved newly designated voting precinct map won't take effect until Jan. 2012, so it won't affect the upcoming November city council elections.

The new voting precincts of the three city council district boundaries A, B and C, reflect population changes in the latest 2010 census.

"After each census we’re required to redo (the map)," said Iowa City Clerk Marian Karr.

The Johnson County Auditor's office began worked with the city clerk's office in creating the map in May, 2011.

Johnson County Deputy Auditor Mark Kistler said they relied heavily on GPS, which had a reprecincting tool that "made it easy" to group census blocks and create the new map of 24 precincts, down from the current 25, to more evenly distribute the newer population of 22,443 in District A, 22,540 in District B and 22,879 in District C.

"We tried to keep precincts looking as close to old ones as we could but it's very difficult with shifting population to do that, so there were a lot of changes," he said.

The precinct boundaries must also be drawn within the House districts bounds created and approved by the Iowa Legislative Service Bureau, which contributed to some oddly shaped precincts, Kistler said.

"Once the Legislative districts are set, then we can draw the precinct boundaries; but they do have to fit within the House boundaries," he said. "We did have new legislative lines to work with, so that altered the map quite a bit."

More detailed information showing streets and buondaries of the individual precincts can be located at http://www.icgov.org/default/?id=show1830&navID=11&navEntry=1502.

State law requires a public hearing and publication of the ordinance before September 1, 2011. The council's unanimous vote in favor was its first consideration.