Kern County residents come together virtually to learn how redistricting impacts their community

July 20, 2021 /

Kern County held its first virtual informational meeting to educate the public on the redistricting process and public mapping tools Monday evening.

This year, Kern County will undergo the process of redistricting in accordance with the 2020 U.S. Census data. Redrawing district lines
to reflect Kern’s current population is vital to ensuring each district is representative of the constituents that live therein. Officials and advocates are encouraging the community to get involved with the process to help ensure local voting districts best reflect our population’s demographics. 

“I can not tell you what your community is like,” Elizabeth Stitt with Redistricting Partners commented during the workshop. “And that’s why its so important for people to come out and give their testimony so the board has as much information to go on.”

Despite the county looking to keep communities of interests together—where like-minded people would benefit from redistricting—this cannot include reasons surrounding political affiliations in order to prevent gerrymandering. Furthermore, each district must have about the same population.

Monday’s redistricting workshop lasted for an hour and a half and consisted of an overview of the redistricting process, a presentation on mapping tools and software, received testimony from communities of interest and public comments before the meeting was adjourned.

Kern County will continue to host a series of outreach meetings before finalizing plans by December.

Tonight the county will host it’s second redistricting workshop, this time in Spanish, at 6 Pm. The workshop can be joined via video here or by phone by dialing 1 (831) 296-3421 and entering the phone conference ID: 169 321 620#. And English translation is available using this phone conference ID: 409 329 194#.

To request to speak during the workshop, attendees can complete this form for English or this form for Spanish.

For more information, interested parties can visit this link: https://www.kerncounty.com/government/2021-redistricting-menu