Raleigh Elections and Council Overall

[keita]

For those of y’all who don’t follow the thread on Raleigh population statistics, the results from last year’s census is taking longer to process than usual, and voting district-based information won’t be released until Sept. 30. That’s because there’s so many people responding using more question formats, and there’s more data to process than ever before. Plus, y’know, there’s a deadly pandemic that’s still raging about…

Why’s it relevant on this thread? This means city elections planned on Oct. 5 could get pushed back, since census results will be out too late for candidates to register and voters to know who they can even vote for:

@The N&O Article

State law requires cities that use districts to correct “population imbalance” before the third day of candidate filing. “It’s highly unlikely” that any city’s districts would not need to be updated, said Blake Esselstyn, a North Carolina redistricting expert who recently wrote about the Census delay.

“It may be minor and those adjustments may not be big, but it is exceedingly rare that districts don’t have population deviations outside the allowable plus or minus 5%,” he said. “And especially in cases like Raleigh and Cary where there are annexations, not only is their growth within city boundaries but the city boundaries have changed.”

As if that’s not bad enough, depending on if/how the General Assembly changes the rules, it could also impact the 2022 primaries (i.e. when Republicans vote on who to replace Sen. Richard Burr).

Learn more, courtesy of the N&O.