Floyd County Temporary Redistricting Commission sends new precinct map to supervisors

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The Floyd County Temporary Redistricting Commission approved the new voting precincts for the county after a public hearing Monday night, sending the recommendation to the county Board of Supervisors where a decision could be made at a special meeting this afternoon (Tuesday).

There was no comment from the public at the commission hearing, either submitted in advance or made at the hearing, so the commission closed the hearing after a brief discussion and moved on to a vote.

Iowa code establishes guidelines for voting precincts. The county commission went into the process with the idea of making as few changes as were necessary, so most people could remain voting in the place they had grown used to.

Members of the commission were appointed by the county Board of Supervisors, and are Mike Staudt, Susan Nelson and Brian Bierschenk.

Nelson said at the commission’s first meeting that she favored the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” option regarding precinct changes.

A couple of changes were required, however, because Floyd County is now split between two Iowa House districts and two Iowa Senate districts, and county voting precincts can’t cross legislative district lines.

Most of the county now belongs to Iowa House District 58 and Iowa Senate District 29, but the northwest corner of the county, the Rock Grove and Rockford townships, are now part of Iowa House District 60 and Iowa Senate District 30, meaning they can’t be parts of precincts with other townships in the county, as they were previously.

The precincts approved by the Temporary Redistricting Committee and sent to the supervisors, along with the precinct populations based on the 2020 U.S. Census, are:

• Rock Grove Township, including the city of Nora Springs; population 1,684.
• Rockford Township, including the city of Rockford; population 1,174.
• Scott Township, Union Township and Pleasant Grove Township, including the city of Marble Rock: population 1,008.
• Rudd Township, Floyd Township, Cedar Township and Niles Township, including the cities of Rudd, Floyd and Colwell; population 2,368.
• Ulster Township, St. Charles Township and Riverton Township, including the portion of the city of Nashua in Floyd County; population pop 1,997.

The other three voting precincts in Floyd County are all within the Charles City city limits, and the Charles City Council is in the process of approving the new city precincts.

As a result of the special election that was held in August, Floyd County is now what is called a Plan Three county, meaning the county will be divided into three supervisor districts, supervisors must live in the district they represent, and the voters of each district elect their own supervisor.

Once the Floyd County voting precincts are approved by the Floyd County Board of Supervisors and then the Iowa secretary of state, the state Legislative Services Agency will draw the new supervisor districts, taking into consideration the new precinct boundaries.

While voting precincts don’t have to have equal populations in them, the new supervisor districts are required by state code to be within 0.01% population deviation.

That means, said Floyd County Auditor and Commissioner of Elections Gloria Carr, that with Floyd County’s population of 15,627, there must be about 5,209 people in each supervisor district, plus or minus 52 people.

The Secretary of State’s Office could decide to not approve the voting precincts because they don’t yield a way to come up with a way to divide into equal supervisor districts, or the Legislative Services Agency may draw up the districts in a way that does not comply with the equal population requirement and decide such an equal division isn’t possible, although that is rare, Carr said.

The new voting precincts will be in effect for the 2022 general election, including candidate nomination filings due in March, the political party primary election June 7 and the general election Nov. 8.

The new precincts will also be in effect for the special elections to be held March 1, for the city of Charles City voters and rural Floyd County voters to decide whether to approved a new 10-year local option sales tax (LOST), to continue the 1-cent sales tax that has been in effect for the past 10 years but that expires at the end of next year.

According to Iowa Code, all county precincts:

• Cannot exceed 3,500 total population.
• Must lie within one legislative district
• Must be composed of contiguous territory – all the townships in one precinct have to touch each other.
• Must follow census block boundaries (census blocks follow township and other political boundaries).