FLORENCE – Today the Pinal County Elections Department received notification that the US Department of Justice has analyzed the county’s redistricting submission and does not object to the redistricting plan. 

Throughout 2011, the county held a series of public meetings to talk about the proposed maps and get vital input from residents, citizen groups and any other individuals with a stake in the outcome.  Public comment was also sought through the county’s website. 

The US Department of Justice scrutinized the map and the associated statistical analysis to ensure that the proposed districts comply with the Voting Rights Act.

“After all the time and effort that we put into this process by reaching out to the public, I am not surprised that our redistricting maps were so quickly pre-cleared by the US Justice Department,” said Pinal County Board of Supervisors’ Chairman Pete Rios.  “I thank our Elections Department staff for all their hard work.”

“Our mapping choices were not easily arrived at, nor were the decisions simple.  We were careful and deliberate as we worked through the issues of competitiveness, compactness, communities of interest and retrogression,” said David Snider, District 3 Supervisor.  “However, in the end I thought we made the best possible choice and it is gratifying to have the Department of Justice concur.”

“We contracted with a redistricting expert who is a former Department of Justice employee to ensure that the process went smoothly and we passed DOJ scrutiny on the first submittal.  Pinal County taxpayers definitely got their money’s worth,” District 2 Supervisor Bryan Martyn said.

The 2010 Census found that Pinal County’s population is at 375,770.  By law, Pinal County must add two new supervisors once it passed the population threshold set in statute, as determined by the official US Census Bureau data.  The new officials will run for election in the November 2012 election and will take their oaths of office in January 2013.

The proposed redistricting maps reflect the change by containing five supervisorial districts.

More information on redistricting and the adopted Pinal County Plan (Map 3A) can be found on Pinal County’s website (shortened url) at: http://goo.gl/623wi.