The Marshall County precinct map will have one minor change, but overall there will not be changes to the council and commissioner districts.
The Marshall County Election Board members reviewed the updated Senate and Congressional maps Thursday morning where it appeared that representation will be adjusted slightly where the Senate and Representative districts are concerned, based on the 2020 census data.
Clerk Deb VanDeMark said German Township would be going into Senate District 9 while the rest of Marshall County would be in District 8 with all of Starke County, a majority of La Porte County and three southern townships of St. Joseph County.
One precinct in North Township will be the Indiana House of Representatives District 7 while the rest of Marshall County will be in District 17.
The General Assembly is expected to approve these maps today. The ballots for affected townships will change in upcoming elections.
Meanwhile, Clerk Deb VanDeMark analyzed the council districts after reviewing census data where each district has to be within the permitted 10 percent deviation based on population.
VanDeMark said, “We do definitely have a census population of 46,095. Take the four council districts, get the population out of each one of those, and I add those up, and divide that by four, the number that we would want to have is 11,593. When I do the deviation, I get it at 6.22 percent which is under the 10 percent which means we would not have to reprecinct for the council race.”
She found that the commissioner districts will stay the same.
As part of this discussion, there is a precinct in Marshall County that has zero voters. As a result, the board members agreed to move Plymouth West to West 1 Precinct. All of the other precincts are within guidelines.
The board members will present their recommendations to the Marshall County Commissioners on Monday, October 4 as they are the government body that needs to approve a resolution concerning redistricting and reprecincting to be submitted to the State.
