Broome Legislator Says Lawsuit Will Be Filed Challenging Redistricting

 Broome County Legislator and member of the Ad Hoc Committee on redistricting, Mark Whalen, says a lawsuit will be filed in State Supreme Court over the redrawn legislative district lines.

The Democrat claims Gerrymandering with Republicans adjusting the lines of some rural districts like in the Town of Maine in order to gain more GOP clout.

He says it will be one round of elections before the challenge is heard in court as Democrats claim the new map was pushed through the approval process this week.

(The AdHoc Committee page and maps can be seen here.)

Whalen says the problem isn’t new.  When it was pointed out the new map looks much like the old map, Whalen said the percentages of certain voting population groups have often been moved around in and out of districts with the intent of getting a larger number of voters inclined to vote for a certain party and leaving other, mainly minority populations, underrepresented.

The long-time Democratic lawmaker says the final map, option three out of five proposals, was, in his words “rammed through” gaining approval to be used in the 2022 elections.  The maps don’t actually officially go into effect until the following year.

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The fight over the redrawing of voting maps based on the 2020 census is not exclusive to Broome County or even local governments.  There are numerous protests over the redrawing of the New York State district lines for voting in Congressional and statewide offices.  The bi-partisan committee tasked with the state map drawing voted right along party lines and has submitted one Democrat and one Republican map.  In the Syracuse area, the Onondaga County Executive vetoed the new legislative map under complaints that it eliminated the only minority-represented district.