REPRECINCTING
UPDATE March 1, 2022: According to the Code of Virginia, precincts must be wholly located within a single election district, meaning that precincts cannot be split by local, state or congressional boundary lines. The Code of Virginia mandates that the local governing body establish precinct boundaries to be consistent with any subsequent changes to congressional, state or local district lines. Therefore, the Board of County Supervisors adopted an ordinance on March 1, 2022, to update its precincts that it adopted in December 2021 to ensure that they are wholly located within the new election district boundary lines as adopted by the Supreme Court of Virginia. The reprecincting map adopted on March 1 is available here.
It should be noted that nothing in the precinct map impacts the district boundary lines adopted by the Board and the state in December 2021.
REDISTRICTING
The Constitution of Virginia requires the Board of County Supervisors to change its district boundaries every 10 years in the year ending in one using the most recent decennial population figures. The Board held a public hearing and adopted the redistricting ordinance on Dec. 21, 2021, at 7:30 p.m. in the Board Chambers of the James J. McCoart Administration Building. The ordinance includes boundary lines for the magisterial districts, descriptions of the boundaries and precincts.
Based on the Code of Virginia, precincts must be wholly located within local, state and congressional election boundaries. The Supreme Court of Virginia is responsible for redistricting the state and congressional boundaries, which has not yet been completed. Therefore, the precincts in the adopted map are based on the local election boundaries and the current state and congressional boundaries. Once the court adopts new state and congressional boundaries, the county will have to reprecinct again in early 2022 to ensure that precincts are wholly located within all election boundaries.
Timeline:
Resources:
Local Guide to Redistricting by the Commonwealth of Virginia, Division of Legislative Services