Floyd County commission likely decides on new voting precincts

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Rock Grove and Rockford townships in Floyd County will become their own individual voting precincts under a redistricting plan tentatively agreed to Thursday morning.

The three members of the county Temporary Redistricting Commission took a little over an hour to decide how to set up rural voting precincts in the county, an every-10-years task required by the U.S. Census and new state legislative districts.

Changes to those two townships, and to the two townships that are currently attached to them to form precincts, were the only changes required under the plan the commission will likely approve at its next meeting, set for next Tuesday, Nov. 16.

Members of the committee were appointed by the county supervisors and are Susan Nelson of Marble Rock, Brian Bierschenk of Nashua and Mike Staudt of Floyd. Staudt was selected the chair of the commission at the meeting Thursday, after the members decided to literally draw numbers from a hat.

Floyd County Auditor Gloria Carr, who is the county commissioner of elections, started the meeting by going through the commission’s responsibilities under Iowa Code.

Even though county voters in a special election in August approved dividing the county into three separate supervisor districts to take effect next year, the role of the Temporary Redistricting Commission does not directly involve setting up those districts.

The precincts that the commission decides on will be used as guides to set up the supervisor districts, but drawing those districts will be up to the Legislative Services Agency, the same non-partisan agency that recently completed drawing the new state legislative and congressional district maps that were approved by the Legislature and signed into law by the governor.

“You’re doing voting precincts, not supervisor districts,” Carr reminded the committee members.

Under the current precinct map that was approved in a similar process 10 years ago, Rock Grove and Rudd townships are one voting precinct, and Rockford and Ulster townships are another voting precinct.

However, the new legislative district maps place Rock Grove and Rockford townships in different Iowa House and Iowa Senate districts than the rest of the county.

Those two townships are now part of House District 60 with Mitchell and Worth counties and a section of Cerro Gordo County, and they are part of Iowa Senate District 30, with all of Mitchell, Worth and Cerro Gordo counties.

Precincts can’t cross legislative district boundaries, so there are only two options for Rock Grove and Rockford townships — either be joined together into one voting precinct, or have each township be its own voting precinct.

If the two townships were joined into one precinct, the likely voting location would be in the biggest community, Nora Springs, Carr said.

“I imagine there would be a lot of flack from Rockford residents — Rockford Township and city residents — if you closed the Rockford voting precinct and said go to Nora Springs,” she said.

Carr provided several examples of ways the precincts could be combined for a new map, with options for seven, eight or nine precincts in Floyd County.

In any of the options, three of those precincts would be within the Charles City city limits, and any changes in those boundaries will need to be decided by the City Council.

There are currently eight precincts in the county including the three in Charles City, and the example of a way to structure the precincts keeping the number at eight is the one the commission members quickly settled on.

In this example, Rudd Township is added to the Floyd-Cedar-Niles precinct, and Ulster Township is added to the St. Charles-Riverton precinct.

Carr emphasized that they were only examples and not meant to sway the commission members, but the three members agreed that option was the closest to keeping things the way they are now.

Nelson said she favored the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” option that kept as many people as possible voting where they have become used to.

Carr said she didn’t expect the group to come to a decision so quickly, and so taking action on a choice wasn’t even on the agenda.

At its next meeting, Nov. 16, the commission will set a time and place for a public hearing for people to have a chance to comment on the proposed precincts.

After that public hearing, the commission can make any changes based on the public’s input or keep the proposal as it is, then it will approve recommending the map to the county supervisors, who can approve it or send it back to the committee for more work.

Once the supervisors approve a precinct map, it is sent to the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office for final approval. At that point the Legislative Services Agency will use the map to draw supervisor districts.

The entire process needs to be completed within 90 days of the legislative maps being approved, Carr said, because people need to know the new boundaries in time to file nomination papers next March for the November 2022 general election.

Because the county will be using supervisor districts next year, all the current supervisors’ terms will expire at the end of 2022, and the newly elected supervisors will take office at the beginning of 2023.

Whether any of the current supervisors can seek re-election will depend on whether they live in the supervisor district they want to run to represent.