Vote by Mail Applications for the 11/5 Presidential Election due by 10/29. Ballot mailings began 10/4; more ballots being sent daily.
Reprecincting Somerville
Every 10 years, all U.S. cities and towns are required to review their population data from the most recent decennial U.S. Census. Then, using that data, they must submit a locally approved ward and precinct map for approval by the State. The most recent analysis of the U.S. Census took place in 2020, and our precinct maps were updated accordingly. The next U.S. Census will occur in 2030.
In 2021, the City of Somerville analyzed the population results from the 2020 U.S. Census to update ward and precinct maps accordingly. The State provides municipalities with strict guidelines that must be followed for this process.
You can find more detail on the standards below that were used to make necessary adjustments to the districts.
Contact Information
Contact Information
Standards
The law requires that voting precincts established by a city or town must meet the following requirements:
- Each new precinct must be “composed of compact and contiguous territory” without protruding fingers or long tails.
- Precincts must be bounded by the center-line of streets or other well defined boundaries such as streams or other bodies of water, railroad tracks, power lines or other clearly visible geographic figures. These features must be recognized as block boundaries by the United States Bureau of the Census and appear on their official block boundary maps. Rear lot lines or other imaginary lines are not acceptable. The use of census boundaries provides redistricting authorities with not only a definitive number of inhabitants in a fixed area, but with demographic information obtained from the federal census, which is essential to any redistricting plan.
- No precinct may contain more than 4,000 residents.
- Every precinct’s population must be within five percent (5%) of the average precinct population for that ward or town. Ward populations must be within five percent (5%) of the average ward population for the city.
- Redrawn precinct and ward boundaries must not result in the dilution of minority group members’ votes.
Further Reading
- To learn more about redistricting in Massachusetts, visit https://malegislature.gov/Redistricting.
- For information on upcoming elections, visit somervillema.gov/Elections.
- The U.S. Census Bureau collects census data on an ongoing basis through the American Community Survey (ACS) to help plan for how funds are distributed. You can learn more about the ACS at census.gov/programs-surveys/acs.
Interested in learning more about the Reprecincting process or Census 2020?
Feedback
Please submit website feedback using this form. Be sure to include:
A description of the issue (if any)
A link to the affected pages
Thank you for your feedback!