No-gerrymandering article considered by Meredith voters

MEREDITH — Voters in Meredith will have an opportunity to weigh in at the March 10th Town Meeting on Warrant Article 15 about an important but somewhat obscure issue that most citizens, and even many elected officials, don’t know much about: The redistricting of state voting districts.

The NH Resolution for Fair Nonpartisan Redistricting has been placed on the Town Meeting ballot in Meredith and some other Lakes Region communities.

Warrant Article 15 in Meredith asks residents to consider whether the town will vote to “ensure fair and effective representation of New Hampshire voters without gerrymandering.”

Meredith is one of 104 towns around the state – including some in the Lakes Region – placing similar resolutions before the voters.

Every 10 years, after the U.S. Census, the state legislature oversees a process of reapportioning voting districts for New Hampshire’s Congressional seats, Executive Council, State Senate, State House, and county commissions. The NH House creates a Special Committee for Redistricting which is tasked with mapping towns into districts. This process for many years was a bipartisan effort, but in the last two decades the process has manipulated the maps to gerrymander many state districts to give one party an electoral advantage.

“For most voters, they may not know that their town has been gerrymandered. But they do know that one party wins year after year, and maybe have even given up on voting because it’s so uncompetitive,” said Olivia Zink, executive director of Open Democracy, a nonpartisan, pro-voter group based in Concord. “What happens with gerrymandering is that politicians pick their voters, not the voters picking the politicians as it should be,” Zink said.

Experts say that fair redistricting includes towns that have common interests, such as a shared economy, a geographic feature like a mountain or lake, or a school district. Districts should also be contiguous and compact, but not include partisan, racial or ethnic data.

The most frequently cited example in New Hampshire is the Executive Council 2, which snakes from Hinsdale on the Vermont & Massachusetts border to Portsmouth and the Seacoast, encompassing mostly Democratic-leaning areas, and leaving adjoining districts more Republican. Several State Senate districts were also manipulated, and towns entitled to their own state House districts were combined into one district for partisan reasons.

After the 2011 redistricting, statistics show that out of the 152 towns which had 3,290 citizens or more to make them eligible for their own House district, 40% did not receive it. Such manipulation can deprive a town of having at least one state representative which represents only the interests of that town.

“Meredith needs to speak loudly and clearly that the redistricting process in New Hampshire should be fair, nonpartisan and transparent,” said Jim McFarlin, Meredith resident and organizer of the resolution’s petition. “Voters of all parties need to make sure that what was allowed to happen in 2011 is not repeated, and that Meredith is properly represented starting in 2021,” McFarlin said.

The statewide effort is being coordinated by Open Democracy, which has a page with more information about redistricting and gerrymandering at OpenDemocracyNH.org/fairmaps. A copy of the resolution (Warrant Article 15) can be found in the 2020 Town Report on Page 99 now posted on the town’s website.