Preliminary work for redrawing the five education district boundaries of the East Tallahatchie School District Board of Trustees lies with school board members themselves, demographer Bill Rigby told the board recently.
ETSD is redistricting as one of the first steps toward complying with a court order that decried the circumstances under which a November school board election was conducted in Tallahatchie County.
In his seven-page, Feb. 27 order tossing the results of the Nov. 8, 2022, election in Education District 7, special Judge Jeff Weill Sr. of Hinds County mandated that certain irregularities be addressed before a do-over election is called.
Weill found that one of the issues was confusion over which of two different maps of ED7 boundaries was valid.
The board hired Rigby, a demographer with more than 30 years of mapping experience, to review the present situation and to oversee the process of necessary changes.
Rigby told the board June 8 that the district had been operating under a redistricting plan adopted in 2002 and based on the 2000 census.
A redistricting process in the wake of the 2010 census led to adoption of a new plan by the ETSD board. However, that plan was never implemented by county election officials, he explained.
A recent review of 2020 census numbers by Rigby found that population shifts had thrown the 20-year-old plan out of alignment.
Federal law dictates that there should be no more than a 10% variance in population from one school education district to another to uphold the doctrine of equal representation by population.
Rigby told the board that the ideal population for each education district, based on the 2020 census, is 1,472 people. He found that ED7 is almost 7% over the ideal, ED9 is 13.5% under and ED10 is 6.8% over.
“So, you take the highest high and the lowest low and add them together, and our variance is over 20%,” said Rigby. “We need to redraw the lines a little bit to get back to where we need to be for the one person, one vote constitutional redistricting plan.”
Rigby told the board that among redistricting principles to keep in mind are some one-dozen set down by the U.S. Justice Department years ago.
“They involve things like, we don’t want to draw an incumbent out of their district; that’s not fair,” he said. “Other things are, you want to be constitutional in how you redraw the districts.”
Rigby suggested that the school board members decide which of the redistricting principles they prioritize.
“I would make a board order and list the ones that you want to make sure that you follow and then simply put those in the minutes to go along with your redistricting plan,” he noted. “It gives me a little bit of guidance on how to draw the plan.”
Rigby asked board members to send him a list of certain personal preferences.
“Send me recommendations of things that you would like to see happen — like, ‘I would like to move my district further east,' or 'I’d like to move my district further west' — and I’ll be glad to take those in writing,” he said. ... “I will make a judgment, and then we’ll discuss it, if necessary.”
James “Honey” Johnson, who finished last among a three-person field in that November 2022 ED7 race and ultimately filed the lawsuit that led to Weill’s ruling, asked Rigby how long the redistricting process will be.
“The judge, he is highly upset with what’s going on,” said Johnson. “He instructed us to have everything done before the spring was gone. And it hasn’t been done. ... I was just wondering how long will this take?”
“It depends on how fast the board moves,” replied Rigby. “I can go home and draw a plan and have it for their approval in the next two weeks. The main thing is, the circuit clerk’s office and the election commissioners need to go and implement the plan after it’s recorded in the minutes. Apparently, that didn’t get done in the 2010 era.”
“The judge told us to go ahead and get this thing done as quick as possible,” Johnson continued.
“It takes a little bit of going to get this,” Rigby responded. “Fortunately, we don’t have to run it past the Justice Department anymore, so it will just be the duty of the school board to pass judgment and get it finalized. We really don’t have a whole lot to do; there’s nothing really dramatic.
“I’ve had some school districts that didn’t get [redistricted] in 20 or 30 years and may be out 70% or 80%. [In those instances], lots of folks get moved,” Rigby explained. “But one of the things that we like to do is least change, which means don’t make a whole great big, huge sweeping change. Just go in and change what needs to be done to affect the plan that is fair to everybody.”
Rigby said dedicated computer software will help in the entire process.
“Basically, here’s a map of the county. And there’s what’s called a census block, which is basically a block of population that is bounded by a visible boundary,” explained Rigby, showing board members a map of the ETSD lines. “Fancy software that we have ... tells us how many people are in each block.”
Split precincts proved to be a major issue in November’s election in ED7.
At several precincts, poll workers were to use two different ballot styles — one that featured the ED7 race, for residents who live within the boundaries of that district, and another which did not.
Poll books used by poll managers were to dictate which ballot style a voter should receive, and the voter access card that would be given to the voter for insertion into the voting machine would then be loaded with the proper ballot.
Weill, as Johnson had charged in his contest filing, found that a significant number of voters were not given correct ballots.
As a result, some voters who live in ED7 were not allowed to vote in the school board race while some non-residents of the district were.
In one example cited by the judge in his order, at the Spring Hill precinct, 51 voters were allowed to cast a ballot in ED7 although they were not residents of the district. All 81 machine voters there received the same ballot access card with the school board race.
Rigby said he will keep the split precinct issue in mind.
“Another consideration — and the circuit clerk will appreciate this — I will do my best to stay within the bounds of the voting precincts and not split precincts where it’s unnecessary,” he noted.
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Weill had been appointed by the Mississippi Supreme Court to preside over a bench trial for a contest of the Nov. 8 election filed by Johnson.
Citing multiple errors and actions, Johnson, 70, had filed his challenge on Nov. 28, a day before the Nov. 29 runoff pitting top vote-getter Tawanda S. Shannon, 48, against Santrail Hunt-Kuykendall, 37.
In the runoff, Hunt-Kuykendall enjoyed a narrow victory over Shannon and on Jan. 6 was sworn in as ED7 trustee.
While Weill’s order invalidated the outcome of the Nov. 8 election, rendering runoff results moot, he ruled that Hunt-Kuykendall would continue to serve until the winner of a new election is certified.
Under the judge's order, Gov. Tate Reeves will issue a “Writ of Election” setting the date for the ED7 revote once the Elections Division of the Mississippi secretary of state’s office finds that proper corrective actions have been taken in Tallahatchie County.
