The Georgia Redistricting Alliance announced today that it will be conducting “Redistricting: The Community Event” in Albany on May 23, 2011. The purpose of the meeting is to help Albany-area citizens to learn about the process for redrawing districts and how they may provide input to legislators at redistricting committee hearings.
The meeting will be a “lunch and learn” from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and will be held at Fresh Market, 106 N. Washington Street, Albany. The conversation is free of charge and lunch may be purchased from Fresh Market. A State House and Senate Joint Redistricting Committee hearing will be held the same evening in Albany from 5 to 7 p.m. at Albany State University, Auditorium, 504 College Ave, Albany.
The Georgia Redistricting Alliance is a coalition of non-profit, non-partisan organizations with the shared goal of ensuring transparency and fairness of the redistricting process in Georgia. The coalition strives to engage and educate citizens, work in partnership with our elected officials and submit a fair, balanced map to the Georgia General Assembly.
“Every ten years, the census count gives us a snapshot of how many people there are in the United States and where they live,” said William Perry of Common Cause Georgia, a member of the alliance. “Once we know how many people live in Georgia, the legislature draws new district lines that put the same number of people into each electoral district.”
“Our community event is being held before the formal Georgia House and Senate Joint
Redistricting Hearing in Albany on the same day,” says Tracey-Ann Nelson of the League of
Women Voters of Georgia, another alliance member. “The better prepared each citizen is, the better the quality of input to the legislators making decisions about political districts.”
“Speaking up about your community is critical to ensuring district lines are drawn to keep your community whole and grouped with nearby communities with similar interests,” adds Krista Brewer, past president of Georgia WAND. “This ensures that your voice is heard by your elected leaders in such decisions as the quality of your child’s school or how high your taxes are.” Every person in Georgia will be impacted by redistricting and we think it is important that they have voice in the process. The Georgia Redistricting Alliance encourages participation from the citizenry and transparency from our elected officials tasked to do this very important work.
The Georgia Redistricting Alliance is a coalition of non-partisan, open-government organizations interested in seeing that the redistricting process in Georgia is open, fair and equitable. We believe that all citizens should have a voice in defining their communities.
