Why local redistricting in NC takes months

North Carolinians who pay attention to political news probably remember that in recent years statewide redistricting plans have been overhauled within a tight timeframe—on multiple occasions. For example, late one Friday in February 2016, a court ordered the congressional districts to be redrawn in two weeks.  The General Assembly (a.k.a. NCGA) complied , enacting completely new maps just three days after the  criteria for drawing the districts  had been adopted.

But folks involved with local government entities using districts for their elections—think county commissions, city councils, school boards—may have heard that their upcoming redistricting processes could well take months. I made such an assertion myself in a  calendar-focused story I wrote back in August , and I’ve been planning to provide a fuller explanation ever since.

So … why does the local redistricting process typically take so much longer than the 2016 example above? The reasons fall into two general categories:

1. The local redistricting process timeline is different from the state-level one
2. The once-a-decade redistricting process is different from court-ordered time-constrained ones

As such, I’ve organized the reasons into two lists below, with twelve reasons from the first category and six from the second.

Two caveats before I dive in:

• School boards, counties, and cities all are governed by different statutes—and some local entities have particular legislation that applies only to them. I’ll try to make statements that will generally apply to most cases, but please be aware that your specific situation may be different. Which leads to the next caveat …
• I am not an attorney (although I regularly work with a number of them). If you’re not sure about whether these points apply to your situation, please consider consulting a lawyer. Some references to legal expertise are tucked into a few of the items below.

Without further ado:

For the “decennial” redistricting process (after a census year, like the one we anticipate in 2021), the NCGA typically works at a much more leisurely pace than in the example above. But look more closely at the local and state process timelines and you’ll see differences because of the different ways the bodies operate. Local boards largely have no choice but to take longer, owing to the following constraints:

A very common monthly meeting schedule for the governing boards of cities and counties is to convene on a pre-established weekday evening and then again two weeks later. Boards of smaller towns and counties, as well as many school boards, only meet one evening per month. By contrast, when the NCGA is in session, members can work all day every day. And in the 2016 example above, the session was called solely for the purpose of redistricting, so the legislators didn’t have other items on their meeting agendas (unlike most local boards typically do).

Local governments must heed open meeting requirements, meaning that a majority of a board’s members (or even a majority of a relevant committee!) cannot confer in private about work between their public meetings. All the discussions must be conducted in the not-so-frequent announced meetings mentioned above or in specially scheduled—and publicized—meetings or worksessions. Theoretically, board members could meet off the record in a series of separate tiny groupings, but such an arrangement is impractical, time-consuming, and rare in practice. State legislators, however, can and do often assemble in private gatherings, not only to figure out their priorities, but also to guide the map-drawing experts on their preferred configurations.

If, during a time crunch or due to an unforeseen circumstance, a local board needs to call a special meeting, there are specified requirements for how to do so, and how much advance notice is required (typically at least 48 hours). The NCGA, on the other hand, can hold special committee meetings essentially at the drop of a hat.

 NCGS 160A-23.1.(a) , for example, requires of cities that “[their] council shall take into consideration the time that will be required to afford ample opportunities for public input.” Note the word “ample” and that “opportunities” is plural, not singular. The NCGA does typically hold some public hearings, but it is under no such requirement to do so (and some would question the attention given to public input). Under an item in the second list below, I will also discuss the relative timing of input and other parts of the process as well as the possibility that in 2021 public input very well could include alternative maps drawn by the public.

Local elected boards usually have fewer than ten members, and regular turnover means that few if any of them would have been involved in the previous round of redistricting ten years earlier. Orienting the members to the process and familiarizing them with the details takes time. But the NCGA, with 50 and 120 members in the Senate and the House respectively, can designate subcommittees with a cadre of folks who are well-versed in the process and can hit the ground running.

The jurisdictions of local boards vary widely in their size and the resources available to them, but it’s safe to say that almost none of them have legislative staff at their disposal the way the General Assembly does. While local boards may need to take time to figure out who will be able to support the process (and time for those people to get up to speed on the various component parts), the NCGA has a large staff with substantial expertise on deck who have literally begun preparing years in advance.

Most boards, even with skilled in-house or contracted legal and technical support, will consider enlisting attorneys and/or other consultants with specific redistricting expertise. As mentioned in item 1 in the second list below, it’s best to be doing this kind of preparatory work before the census data appears, but in many cases the boards require time to complete the selection and engagement process after the census data is released. (NCGA members, even with their substantial staff expertise at hand, also typically have access to outside consultants, generally identified and/or retained well in advance, but the consultants are employed by parties or caucuses and the interactions are private.)

There are only so many weekday evenings during redistricting season, and a majority of boards hold their regular meetings on Monday or Tuesday evenings. A consulting attorney or demographer with multiple clients may not be able to attend a certain meeting if previously committed for another client’s meeting at the same time. As such, the item may need to be placed on a subsequent agenda that’s weeks down the road. (The new prevalence of virtual meetings may make it easier than in the past for a contractor to attend multiple meetings on the same evening, but this “schedule congestion” is still a real consideration.)

Consider the Fourth of July, for example, whose federal holiday will be observed on a Monday in 2021. Boards which regularly meet on the first Monday of the month will often opt to cancel the meeting that falls on such a holiday, meaning that weeks, or even a month, can be added to the process. Similarly, many boards won’t meet during the week of Thanksgiving, even if their meeting doesn’t fall on a Thursday.

Understandably, many boards prefer to designate a span with no meetings during the summer. And there’s a  good chance that summer will be in the middle of the redistricting timeline  for most local entities.

In addition to the legal and administrative support mentioned in item 6 above, the NCGA has a well-staffed  division  devoted to their IT needs. Specialized network hardware and a huge web presence with countless page updates, including interactive maps and streaming video and audio, are all old hat on West Jones Street. Most local governments, however, need to make do with much less in the way of IT infrastructure, which can translate to slower dissemination of information. Moreover, in the past, redistricting has famously included people being able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder to look at maps together (see  example   images ). With coronavirus concerns likely to persist into 2021, providing a way for board members to look at details of maps together simultaneously online could present technological challenges and introduce added time not required when officials and the public can convene together in the same space.

In a handful of counties around the state, a board’s jurisdiction will overlap with the jurisdiction of another districted board and the two bodies will strive to have their districts align with each other to the extent feasible. For example, a county commission and a board of education might want their districts to be as similar as possible. This consideration adds steps to the process, and potential additional time while the drafted lines are considered, revised, and advanced by multiple entities.

Court-imposed expedited redistricting sprints may be fresher in our memories, but the “regular” post-census redistricting process at the NCGA can indeed take months (and, conversely, a local government required by a court to redistrict in short order could also hasten the process if required). The items below explain relevant requirements and best practices that make a lengthier process in 2021 a wise idea.

As I’ve written  before , the US Census Bureau’s delivery of redistricting data can be likened to the starting gun for the redrawing process. (Note that local government entities, like runners, should be preparing for the effort before the starting gun.) But after that data appears, technical practitioners will need time to digest, convert, and custom format the data and link it to local map geographies before the process of creating new districts can begin in earnest. By contrast, in 2016, the NCGA had previously had ample time to process  all the data they needed  and had already  sliced and diced  it in multiple ways. 

The multi-month timeframe for local board redistricting assumes that those boards will want to be able to review at least one draft, and preferably multiple different drafts, as part of the process. The timeframe would then allow time for those drafts to be thoughtfully and carefully revised before the board considers multiple final plan versions from which to adopt one. Another complicating factor for 2021 is that local and state alternative plans under consideration could also include more plans submitted by the public!

When the NCGA adopted the new congressional maps in 2016 under a court-imposed deadline, by contrast, there was essentially one plan under consideration, and no time allowed for substantive revisions. (What’s more,  evidence from 2019 litigation  seems to indicate that the plan had already been drafted, analyzed, revised, and polished behind the scenes before the NCGA’s redistricting committee even met to adopt the criteria for map drawing, but that’s another story.)

In addition to the mandated public input (see item 4 in the first list above), boards should ideally provide a reasonable interval after draft maps are shared and before the next public hearing, for the public to consider and review the drafted districts before making comment. If a public process takes place without much time for the constituents to review what’s going on, there can be the perception that it’s being “rammed through,” leading to added suspicion. Moving at what some call the “speed of trust,” on the other hand, provides a better chance for public confidence and understanding. The growing likelihood of additional draft plans drawn by residents only increases the importance of time for consideration between meetings.

As a contrast, in the 2016 example, the only distributed public hearings were held before the criteria or map drafts were made public, and the NCGA did not provide time for review or substantial comment by constituents between the release of draft maps and the adoption of the maps.

Local officials, both elected and otherwise, often receive requests for information related to matters under consideration by the board(s), and addressing those inquiries takes time. The matter of redistricting is no exception. Requests for certain information or particular statistics can not only help the public understanding, but also often lead officials to consider something they hadn’t before, which can be good for a process—and it can also prolong it.

Consider, too, that many citizens, and even board members, may not have strong computer skills and may prefer to consult hard copies of documents and maps, which can take more time to produce and distribute.

An accelerated process increases the chances of oversights that could become legal liabilities. Recognizing the huge costs that can accompany litigation, many boards opt for a careful, methodical, unhurried process, not only to ensure a districting plan that will best provide representation for their constituents, but also to reduce chances of legal challenge based on a technical gaffe. It is perhaps worth noting that the NCGA’s 2016 districting plan repeatedly cited above was  overturned  by a Wake County Superior Court as a gerrymander in 2019—and then, perhaps unsurprisingly, redrawn in a matter of days.

2020 has reminded us in a big way that schedules and plans sometimes need to be modified in the name of public safety. Add to that the fact that redistricting season overlaps with hurricane season, and it’s reasonable to include padding in the timeline to allow for contingencies that can’t be foreseen.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! As a final note, you may be interested to know that the COVID → census → redistricting → elections calendar  domino effect story from August  (referenced above)  considered questions about the data delivery dates  that are still a valid concern as of this writing.

[And if you are a local official wondering about the upcoming redistricting process, you might consider reaching out to the newly formed  Local Redistricting Service  team of attorneys, demographers, and mapping experts, affiliated with a bipartisan 501(c)(3) and committed to providing a nonpartisan, transparent process at a reasonable price. Full disclosure: I am a member of this team.]