Boise City Council Release Map and Implementation Plan for District Elections

June 24, 2021

In their regular Tuesday meeting, Boise City Council members will hear and vote on an ordinance that creates geographic districts for the November 2021 city council elections and an implementation plan outlining how districts will be managed in upcoming years.

During the 2020 Legislative Session, Idaho lawmakers passed a bill requiring that all cities with more than 100,000 must elect their city council members by geographic districts. The City of Boise created the districts for the upcoming elections in a very short timeframe to comply with the requirement that a map and implementation plan be approved 120 days before the November election, by July 2021.

“The goal of the map is, to the extent possible, to create districts that are equal in population, geographically contiguous and avoid splitting up our recognized neighborhood associations by following recognized districting principles,” said Council President Elaine Clegg. “We are confident that we have proposed carefully considered balanced districts, but we are greatly disappointed that, due to the severely shortened timeframe, we were not able to engage residents in the process. We look forward to a robust public process with new census numbers going into the 2023 election cycle.”

For the upcoming 2021 election, Boise City Council seats 1, 3, and 5 will be up for election using the new geographic districts and for two-year terms instead of the standard four years. These three seats have incumbents whose terms are expiring this year. The other three council members who were elected in 2019 will be able to complete their terms. This will allow for all council seats to be up for election under a new map in 2023.

In 2022, the City will begin the process to engage with the public on how the districts will be adjusted in preparation for the 2023 elections once the new census data is available and the 2022 legislative session is complete. Under the new law, and a change from how city elections have been in the past, a candidate must live in the geographic district that they are running for and only the residents of that district are allowed to vote for that seat.

The district map and implementation plan released today was created in partnership with a consultant team who are experts in drawing districting maps. It meets recognized districting criteria, and while it is based on the 2010 census data it attempts to anticipate growth that has taken place since that time to reflect the population of the city as closely as possible. The intention is to keep as many neighborhoods whole as the numbers allow and minimize splitting county election precincts. Each of the six districts is balanced population-wise within the +/- 5% requirement.

The map and additional information can be found here and will be posted on the June 29th council meeting agenda. Feedback on the map and agenda item will be used to inform the process going forward and can be sent to citycouncil@cityofboise.org.

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