Create Your Plan
How to Create Your Plan
The map submission deadline of April 15, 2022 has expired, so we are no longer accepting map submissions.
Residents are encouraged to submit their own redistricting plans by using the DISTRICTr tool, available by clicking on the “Create Your Plan” link, to identify the boundaries of their community and share what makes it a community. Every map submitted to the City of Dallas Redistricting Commission will be included as part of the public record. However, the Redistricting Commission will only consider maps that comply with following requirements, outlined in federal law and the City of Dallas Charter:
Redistricting Map Guidelines – as Adopted by the Redistricting Commission on November 22, 2021
Charter Guideline: The districts shall be substantially equal in population according to the total population count as presented in the census data, except where deviation is required to comply with federal law or is allowable by law.
Additional Considerations
The total deviation between the largest and the smallest district must be as small as possible but should be less than 10%.
PLEASE NOTE: The Districtr software measures the difference in population between the district with the largest population compared with the Ideal Population OR between the district with the least (negative) population compared with the Ideal Population – whichever is greater. The Districtr software terms this measurement as the Maximum Deviation. However, because the software is looking at only ½ of the measurement of Total Deviation, Districtr caps this Maximum Deviation at 5%. Therefore, each district within a map should not exceed a 5% deviation measurement.
For evaluation of a submitted map, we use the Total Deviation measurement which is the difference between the most and the least populated district divided by the Ideal Population (which is Total Population/Divided by the number of Districts). The Total Deviation percentage for a submitted map should not be more than 10%, when residents are creating their own maps for submission. Only those maps that meet the Total Deviation requirement will be considered for acceptance.
Minor population deviations may be allowed if they are necessary to achieve a good faith, legitimate objective, such as:
- preserving the voting strength of minority populations in compliance with the Voting Rights Act
- making the districts compact
- maintaining communities of interest in a single district and avoiding splitting neighborhoods
- using public school attendance boundaries as defined by the independent school districts in the City of Dallas to assist in defining neighborhoods
- preserving the cores of existing districts as permitted by case law, meaning to recognize the traditional geographic, economic, cultural or social center of an existing district as supported by public testimony
- following easily identifiable geographic boundaries and other unique geographical configurations
Charter Guideline: In addition to the requirements of federal law, there shall be no discrimination on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group, and the voting strength of racial, ethnic, and language minorities in the districts shall not be diluted to deprive minority voters of an equal opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice.
Additional Considerations
Race, ethnicity, and language minority consideration cannot be the predominant factor to which other districting legal principles are subordinated.
The reconfiguration of districts may not create a retrogression of the rights of minority voters to elect a candidate of their choice.
A majority minority district may be created to provide fair representation to the members of racial, ethnic, and language minority populations where compelling justification requires such a district as determined by the following factors:
- a reasonably compact district can be drawn in compliance with the other redistricting guidelines in which voters of the minority group constitute a majority of the electorate and will increase the probability that members of the minority will be elected
- the minority community is politically cohesive and usually votes together
- other voters in the area generally vote as a bloc to successfully defeat the minority community’s preferred candidates.
Charter Guideline: The districts shall be geographically compact, to the extent possible, and composed of contiguous territory.
Additional Considerations
Compactness and contiguity involve both a functional and a geographic aspect and are defined by case law to include factors such as:
- Contiguity: No part of the district should be geographically separated from any other part of the district
- Compactness: A district is generally considered reasonably compact if it has a fairly regular geometric shape (circle, square, hexagon) with constituents all living relatively near to each other and having minimum distances between all parts of a constituency.
Charter Guideline: The reconfiguration of districts shall be neutral as to incumbents or potential candidates.
Charter Guideline: Communities of interest shall be placed in a single district and attempts should be made to avoid splitting neighborhoods, where possible without violating the other requirements.
Additional Considerations
“neighborhoods” and “communities of interest” may be defined by:
- geographically compact areas where there are people who share clearly recognizable similarities of social, political, cultural, ethnic, religious, or economic interests.
- homeowner associations, neighborhood associations, crime watch groups and preservation/historic districts
- the existence of shared interests, including a history and tradition of working together and relating to each other
- the use of public-school attendance boundaries as defined by the independent school districts in the City of Dallas
- boundaries that facilitate communications between constituents and their elected representatives
- easily identifiable geographic boundaries such as highways, major thoroughfares, and natural waterways.