The new map includes two districts, 2 and 4, in Limestone County areas of the City, with the remaining five districts serving Madison County portions of the City. Redistricting of municipal districts is the process of rebalancing the population of each district in the city so that each has an approximately equal number of people residing within. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the City of Madison has grown from 29,329 in 2000 to 42,938 in 2010. The State requires that cities maintain “as nearly as may be the same number of inhabitants” in each council voting district and that balance be evaluated after the census results are released.
Therefore, Madison has undertaken the task of evaluating the balance among its seven (7) voting districts and proposes revised district boundaries in order to minimize the deviation between the highest and lowest populated district. The state considers a variation of 10% or more a “substantial deviation” and the proposed redistricting map has a deviation of less than 3%.