MIDLAND, Texas — Every 10 years the Midland county commissioner's court takes a look at census numbers and makes adjustments depending on where its population is living within the county. It also means district lines could be changed, and Sept. 27's commissioner's meeting was the first step in making those most recent changes.
The court received an initial assessment from a partner that works for a law firm in Austin called Bickerstaff Heath Delgado Acosta LLP that included the populations of each district and where things might need to shift.
"The whole point of redistricting is just to make sure every district that you have has an equal amount of people," said Luis Sanchez, Midland County Commissioner for Precinct 3.
Precinct two and three have seen some change, "There has been some change, some of that change happened in my precinct which means we have less people, then in precinct two they have quite a bit more a difference by about 3,000 people. So now we'll have to go back and redistrict and maybe look at one of the voting districts to shift some of the people over," said Sanchez.
"We don't move people around; you move the boundary of the commissioner's precinct, so it encompasses more or less people," said David Mendez, a partner at Bickerstaff Heath Delgado Acosta, LLP.
This is just the first step in the redistricting process. The court will meet several more times before the redistricting is finished and are hoping to be done by the end of October.