District lines get redrawn in Madison County

MADISON COUNTY, Tenn. — A growth in Madison County districts means it is time to redraw the lines. 

The redistricting committee approved a new map of county districts Monday. District 8 Commissioner Carl Alexander says the new map was in correlation with the 2020 Census.

“Every 10 years we have to redistrict according to the census that is done,” Alexander said. “We were here today to redraw the district lines and make sure that every commissioner represents the same number of people in the districts.”

But not every district had to be changed.

“The main ones were up north in Districts 9, parts of District 4 and District 3. Those were the main ones that had to be realigned,” said Alexander.

Alexander says while Madison County only had a 500 person population growth in the 2020 Census, the districts that were changed had substantial growth.

“We had a lot of movement inside the county and had one district that grew by over 2,000 people. We had to go back in and adjust those lines to again make sure that each commissioner represents the same number of people.”

He says the redistricting only made small changes to the map, but it is now easier to read for both commissioners and county residents.

“We were able to go in and clean up some of the different zones,” Alexander said. “Before there were a lot of jagged lines for people to try and keep up with and now it is a smoother transgression of the districts now.”

The Jackson-Madison County School System district map was also changed.

The map will be presented to the mayor’s office this week, and then to the public during a meeting.

The Madison County Election Commission also had to combine polling locations, and went from 33 to 30 locations in the county.

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