LAWTON – People who want to weigh in on Lawton’s new voting ward map will have to wait until Friday.
The Lawton Redistricting Commission, which is in charge of redrawing the city’s voting wards to account for population shifts over the past 10 years, was originally supposed to host a public hearing on the new map Wednesday afternoon at City Hall.
However, that hearing was canceled because the agenda was not posted and accessible to the public within 48 hours of the meeting, according to the Oklahoma Open Records Act, city officials said in a news release.
“The city of Lawton continues to be impacted by COVID-19, which resulted in multiple staff members from the city of Lawton’s planning department to be absent from work, causing the issue with the agenda posting,” officials said.
The hearing has been rescheduled for 2 p.m. Friday in the City Hall Auditorium.
New voting wards
Once a decade, the redistricting commission adjusts the boundaries of the city’s eight voting wards to account for shifts in population. The commission relies on the most recent U.S. Census data to guide its work.
Using that data, the commission must divide the city’s population among eight wards as evenly as possible. The commission’s work forms the basis for a new ward map, which must preserve areas with common interests as much as possible.
Ideally, the population difference between the largest and smallest wards in a new ward map should be no more than 10%, although a larger deviation is permissible if it helps achieve the goal of balancing the population in each ward.
In December, the redistricting commission endorsed a proposed map which featured a 9.3% spread between the largest and smallest wards. Officials said that map would keep about 86% of Lawton residents in their current wards.
Voters will get a chance to comment on the proposed map during Friday’s public hearing, which will kick off a 10-day waiting period before the commission can vote on adopting the map.
The current ward map and the new proposal are available for viewing on the city’s website, www.lawtonok.gov.