The Hanover County Board of Supervisors has adopted a plan that creates a roughly equal population within each election district as required by law and also creates some new precincts and polling places.
Reapportionment of districts is required every 10 years following the U.S. Census and must be approved by the local governing body by the end of a year ending in “1”. The plan will be submitted to the Attorney General for approval before December 31.
Since the Census concluded that Hanover had a population of 109,991 in 2020, each voting district had a target population of 15,713 residents, with a 2.5% variance allowed.
In the plan adopted by the Board on December 8, the Ashland District gained the most people and the Mechanicsville District had no change, and all districts remained within the 2.5% variance of the target population.
One new polling place was added to the Ashland District: Honey Meadows, an area that was moved from the Chickahominy District. A Rutland precinct was added in the Chickahominy precinct; people living in that precinct will vote in the Atlee Library. An Old Church precinct was added to the Cold Harbor District; voting at Bethlehem Presbyterian Church will be residents of an area relocated from the Henry District.
The Board unanimously adopted the plan recommended by staff. There had been presentations of the plan at all four high schools and no citizens spoke to the plan during the public hearing.
The Town of Ashland has requested that the new Town Hall be used as a polling place, and Ashland supervisor Faye Prichard agreed. “Citizens should pick their elected officials and not the other way around and this plan exemplifies that,” she said.
Henry supervisor Sean Davis regretted the move of the Old Church precinct to the Cold Harbor District, noting that in addition to losing that constituency both his School Board appointment and his Planning Commission appointment will no longer be able to represent the Henry District when their current term ends because both now live in the Cold Harbor District.
County attorney Dennis Walter noted that the redistricting of State election districts is underway and the State redistricting might require future adjustments to the County’s plan.
The County’s website has a page dedicated to redistricting here.