November 9, 2021
The Paper Of Record for Fannin County Texas
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Fannin County Commissioners Court Special Meeting – Redistricting Discussed
Monday, November 1, 2021, County Judge Randy Moore called to order at
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4/13/21
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By Rose Schwartz
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7:00 a.m., a Special Meeting of the Fannin County Commissioners Court. A quorum was established as all Commissioners and County
07/02/19 Commissioners Courts pre-
Judge were present. 2. Discussion and possible action with Allison, Bass & Magee, L.L.P. regarding redistricting of Fannin County
cincts: Judge Moore began by asking Robert T. Bass of Allison, Bass & Magee, L.L.P., to share all the in-
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formation he had regarding redistricting. Mr. Bass explained that on the precinct map he was sharing with the court, there were percentile numbers on each precinct that represented the percentage of deviation each of the precincts has from a perfectly balanced population. Data
gathered from the 2020 census revealed that the county’s population is 35,662 with the prison population being 1999. Because most of the prison population will typically hold individuals who have lost their right to vote due to felony convictions, Mr. Bass explained that most counties opt to not count that population when it comes to voting numbers per precinct. He then explained that removing the 1999 number from the 35,662-population count, is then divided by the number of precincts in a county (which in Fannin County’s case would be four) and the total ideal population per precinct would be in Fannin County, 8,416. With that said, he continued, that Precinct 1 is overpopulated by 99 people which is a 1.18% deviation from the ideal number of 8,416. Precinct 2 is overpopulated by 815 which is a deviation of 9.69% from that number. Precinct 3 is underpopulated by 443 making their percentage of deviation 5.26% and Precinct 4 is also underpopulated by 472 bringing that percentage of deviation to 5.61%. The two ends of the spectrum are added (Precinct 2 and Precinct 4) and the total range comes out to 15.30%. He explained that because that number of deviations exceeds the constitutional maximum of 10% that a county can deviate from having a balanced population, it results in district lines needing to be redrawn to get closer to the perfect balance number of 8,416 and lessen the amount of deviation to bring it closer to zero. He said the population in Precinct 2 would need to lose some of its population into Precinct 3 and 4. There were more specifics spoken of about the determination of what population would need to go to 3 and 4 and questions asked by Commissioners Lane, Self, and Lackey about the redrawing of Precinct border lines Mr. Bass had proposed. He explained that the redrawing of the lines did take into consideration elected incumbents’ addresses and he was prepared to have his proposal fine-tuned by the Commissioners input. Commissioner Lane noted an inaccuracy existing on the map regarding what he had noted as an incumbent’s address which was the location of her county barn. Mr. Bass explained he was working with what was previously given to him and asked that a correct list of incumbent addresses be sent to him. Continued
See Redistricting on page 8