Redistricting Update -

The Bureau of Elections (BOE) has begun updating the Qualified Voter File (QVF) street index to reflect new congressional, state senate, state house and county commissioner district alignments.   We will redistrict one jurisdiction at a time.  In general, we will redistrict jurisdictions in the order in which we received information packets.  At the current time we have received over 1,000 packets.  In many cases, however, we will not be able to make changes to the QVF until after the Presidential Primary on February 28, 2012.  We will make no changes to jurisdictions conducting elections on February 28 involving existing districts until after the election.  We will not make changes to jurisdictions whose precinct boundaries are changing until after February 28.

If your jurisdiction has not yet submitted redistricting materials to BOE, please do so as soon as possible.  If we do not receive your redistricting materials by March 5, it will be difficult to make the changes in time for the August election.  Please go to the redistricting website found at www.michigan.gov/redistricting to reference all redistricting information and to determine if your packet has yet been received.  Packets received are posted to the spreadsheet and updated on a daily basis.  This website also includes interactive maps of the new districts to assist you in completing the redistricting process.

Redistricting Process - The BOE Redistricting Team will first contact each jurisdiction approximately one day in advance of beginning redistricting.  We will leave a voice mail message if we are unable to contact the clerk directly.  We expect that redistricting changes will take approximately one day to complete in most cases.  Please refrain from making any updates to the QVF during this 24 hour period.  Read-only access to QVF data will still be available during this 24 hour period.

BOE will contact each jurisdiction by phone once we have successfully completed the QVF street index changes.  At that time, jurisdictions may resume normal QVF updates.  In addition to the phone call, BOE will send an email to each jurisdiction with specific details regarding the changes and a list of post-redistricting tasks.  Jurisdictions will be required to review their data and reassign polling locations.  (You will not have to re-enter polling location information, you will simply need to re-assign the precincts to the proper polling locations.)  Since many precinct boundaries will change, we will not presume that you want to maintain current polling locations.  This information must be correct as it will appear in new voter ID cards.

New Voter ID cards - We have received a number of questions from clerks regarding the timing and issuance of post-redistricting ID cards.  We have created custom redistricting software in a special module in the QVF that will identify voters who must be sent new ID cards because of statutory mandates.  Clerks will also have the option of sending new ID cards to all voters or just those whose districts have changed.  Clerks may wish to exercise the option of sending ID cards to all voters since it is a good way to identify voters who may no longer live in the jurisdiction.  Even though the street index changes of some jurisdictions will be complete prior to the Presidential Primary, we recommend that voter ID cards not be issued until after February 28, 2012 to avoid voter confusion.  Jurisdictions whose redistricting changes take place after the February 28 Presidential Primary should send out voter ID cards as soon as the process is complete.

If you have further questions, please reference our website at www.michigan.gov/redistricting or call at 800-292-5973.