An innovative software package will potentially save many laborious hours of hand calculation for the county’s Redistricting Committee.
The software, called ArcGIS for Desktop, displays data as points on a map, providing users with a way to manage and integrate their data, perform advanced analysis, and display the results on professional-quality digital maps. The maps are based on data from global positioning satellites, the same ones used with consumer GPS systems.
The Redistricting Committee includes E911 director Chuck Haston, election administrator Donna Yates, Planning Committee member Robert Collier, and commissioners Michael Martin and George Smartt.
The county currently has a trial version of the program, which costs $1,500, but during the meeting the committee members voted unanimously to purchase the software subject to approval from the Budget and Finance Committee and director of accounts Linda Hillis.
Haston brought a portable computer projector and a laptop with a running demo version of the software which had the Warren County census data already loaded.
With this equipment Haston was able to project a bar graph of the current population of the county’s 12 districts. The three districts with the most population after the 2010 census are the 2nd, 3rd and 9th. The two with the least population were the 5th and 6th. All the districts were either slightly above or below 3,320.
It’s the responsibility of the Redistricting Committee to make each district as close to the median 3,320 as possible. However, there are areas called census blocks that have to be moved as a whole. Residents can’t be moved in or out piecemeal, which makes the process more difficult, particularly if the committee was working with paper maps.
But with the graphical interface and digital maps, census blocks can be moved with instant feedback as to how the move changes the populations of the districts.
After working with the program, Haston said he has developed a real appreciation of the package and what it can do.
“I can’t imagine trying to do this on paper,” Haston said.
Smartt, Yates and Martin had all been on the redistricting committee the last time.
“It was fun, wasn’t it George and Michael?” Yates said.
“Oh it was fun,” Smartt agreed, with more than a touch of sarcasm.
Haston then talked about the program and what it can do.
“I’ve practiced with this for awhile, because it’s a complicated little program,” Haston said. “What this will allow us to do is look at where we stand with the data we have now, graphically speaking.”
Smartt noted some of the relevant data in the current version of the map.
“Districts 5 and 6 were down quite a bit,” Smartt said. “And then 2 and 3 were the greatest deviation, they were 9 percent over.”
Though the program can handle any of the political districts, Smartt explained what the county would be using it for.
“We will be handling the commission districts, the School Board districts and the constable districts,” Smartt said. “The state does the house and senate districts, plus the congressional districts. But now what we may have to do is, after the state draws its state house districts, we may go back and adjust our commission districts so they’re in the same boundaries. Like, say, the 10th and 11th district, or the 9th and the 10th, because it wouldn’t make sense if the state boundary included one group of people that voted in one district for the house, and another for the commission. Ten years ago we had to do that in Centertown because they altered the line just a little bit.”