Des Moines County will work on redrawing precinct maps

Now that the Iowa Legislature has drawn its redistricting maps, Des Moines County has to figure out what it will do with its precincts.

Des Moines County has seen a great deal of population movement, meaning the auditor's office has work to do this year.

“If it is a larger city, we have to have an agreement with them,” explained County Auditor Terri Johnson.

The auditor's office is only required to have an agreement on precinct size with Burlington. In the 2020 census, Burlington lost 2,000 residents, allowing the city to condense into eight precincts.

Development director Eric Tyskand said the new map equalizes the population in the city’s eight precincts. Precincts may have no more than 3,500 residents. Most of the precincts in Burlington will be about 3,100 residents.

Another requirement of voting precincts is that they must fall in line with the maps drawn by the Legislature for legislative districts. For the past 10 years, all of Des Moines County has resided in the Senate 44 District. In the House, Burlington, West Burlington and two county townships were in the 87th district and the rest of the county was in the 88th district.

House District District 95, which Rep. David Kerr (R) said is mostly the same as the current District 88, now stretches down to the border of Burlington. This puts Tama Township in his district. In the current map, Tama Township was part of House District 87, which is represented by Rep. Dennis Cohoon (D).

Because of these changes, Johnson will have to separate Tama Township and Burlington Precinct 1.

Johnson said that she will likely leave the Tama precinct voting at Oak Street Baptist Church as it has been for years, but there will be separate ballots for those in Tama Township and Burlington District 1. There are already separate ballots during the city/school election, since those who live in the Tama Township are not eligible to vote in the Burlington City Council race.

Likewise, Concordia Township had previously voted with the Burlington 8th precinct, but now will be a separate precinct with a separate ballot, although the polling place won't change. Concordia Township, which is just south of Burlington, is still in the same House and Senate district as Burlington.

House District 99, which takes the place of much of House District 87, now includes Danville and Danville Township, but not Middletown

Previously, all of Des Moines County was part of Senate District 44, which is represented by Sen. Tim Goodwin (R), but now the county will be split. The portion of Des Moines County that is in House District 95 will be part of Senate District 48, while House District 99 will be part of Senate District 50, which will include Lee County.

While Kerr does reside in his new district, based on boundary lines, The Hawk Eye could not determine if Cohoon and Goodwin still reside within their districts. If Goodwin does reside in Senate District 50, he will be in the same district as Sen. Jeff Reichman (R), who currently represents Senate District 42.

In 2010, Johnson, who was not auditor but did handle the elections for the auditor's office, said she didn't have to worry about West Burlington since the city remained largely the same and could be kept to one district. However, the city has grown considerably and there may be a reason to change the district now.

Because of the size of West Burlington, the county does not need to give the city an input on the district. However, the county will have to work with Burlington to determine what its precincts will look like.

Another thing that Johnson will have to work on as her office does redistricting is ensuring that voting precincts are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA is a way of ensuring that individuals with disabilities are able to vote by providing an accessible voting space or another way to vote.

“We might need a new set of eyes,” Johnson said. “We might need to change. I know there are some locations where we would like to find a new location.”

In years past, the county was able to utilize school buildings as voting places. But as security has tightened in school buildings, the county has tried to use other buildings, such as churches, as polling places.

When excluding Burlington, there are only two precincts that vote out of a church — West Burlington and Yarmoth/Washington Township.

Churches may be used at polling places as long as they abide by rules about not having religious imagery or political signage in view of those who are voting.

While redistricting will affect state senators and representatives, it will not affect local officials as none of the local government entities in Des Moines County have districted seats except for Southeastern Community College, which has a board of directors representing different areas served by SCC.

This article originally appeared on The Hawk Eye: Des Moines County auditor will work to redraw precinct maps