The 2022 election in West Virginia will be about campaigns, fund raising, political ads, debates, and policy disagreements.
But now, the election is about boundaries, as in the lines that separate the political districts within our state.
Every ten years, each state uses new Census data to reapportion congressional and legislative districts based on population.
West Virginia’s process is underway. The House of Delegates and the Senate have appointed bipartisan committees—24 members from the House and 9 members from the Senate—to do the work.
Lawmakers are expected to hold a series of public hearings across the state. Citizens will have an opportunity to give their input on anything associated with redistricting, such as which communities should be included in a district or divided into separate districts.
By late August, the Census should have delivered to the state preliminary population figures broken down into Census blocks. These are the smallest population units. West Virginia had over 135,000 Census blocks in the 2010 Census.