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City of Cambridge
CITY HALL
410 ACADEMY STREET
CAMBRIDGE, MARYLAND 21613
TELEPHONE: 410-228-1955
E-Mail: info@choosecambridge.com
The City of Cambridge Ward Realignment Committee meeting will be held on Thursday,
September 7th at 6:00 pm at Council Chamber 305 Gay Street, Cambridge, Maryland These are
the following items scheduled:
AGENDA
1. Committee formation
a. Introductions
b. Establish Committee Governance/by-laws
i. Election of a Chairperson & Vice Chairperson
ii. Establish meeting schedule – date & time
iii. Attendance and participation expectations
2. Review of Committee’s mission
a. Federal & State guiding principles
b. Review of current district map
c. Review of 2020 data
3. Discussion of Approach to Redistricting
a. Identify potential scenarios to be mapped
4. Adjourn
* Please note the agenda is subject to change, the final agenda will be approved by the
Committee at the Meeting.
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City of Cambridge - Ward Redistricting
This document covers redistricting basics and discusses how the City has grown in population
over the last ten years (2010-2020).
What is redistricting?
• Redistricting takes place every 10 years after completion of the decennial U.S.
Census.
• District lines are redrawn to ensure the population of each district is close to equal.
• Block level census data that will be used for redistricting was released by the U.S.
Census Bureau in late 2021.
Why redistrict?
• To meet the constitutional requirement of one-person, one-vote.
• In order for everyone's vote to count equally, voting district populations need to be
equal.
• Over time, district populations change and become unbalanced.
How?
City Council must approve new district boundaries that follow constitutional and statutory
principles:
Key Principals1:
• Equal Population: The new wards will need to have equal populations with no two
districts having a deviation greater than 10%. Based on the 2020 census numbers the
new districts will have a population close to 2,628.
• Contiguity: All parts of a ward must be connected.
• Compactness: Attempt to have the minimum distance between all the parts of a ward.
The constituents within a ward should live as near to one another as practicable. A circle
or square is a compact shape.
• Constituent Consistency: Attempt to maintain the wards as previously drawn when
possible so constituents have a continuity of representation.
• Natural features: Due regard is given to natural boundaries, such as waterways or
mountains, to not have wards divided by these boundaries.
• Preserve Communities of Interest: Attempt to preserve geographical areas, such as
neighborhoods, where the residents have common political interests. A community of
interest is defined by FairVote as a "group of people in a geographical area, such as a
specific region or neighborhood, who have common political, social or economic
interests."
• Avoiding pairing incumbents: Avoid drawing wards that have more than one
incumbent or no incumbent.
• Race and Ethnicity: Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 mandates that electoral
district lines cannot be drawn in such a manner as to "improperly dilute minorities' voting
power."
1 Extrapolated from https://ballotpedia.org/Redistricting_in_Maryland#State_process
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States and other political subdivisions may create majority-minority districts in order to
comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. A majority-minority district is a district in
which minority groups compose a majority of the district's total population.
Proponents of majority-minority districts maintain that these districts are a necessary
hindrance to the practice of “cracking”, which occurs when a constituency is divided
between several districts in order to prevent it from achieving a majority in any one
district. In addition, supporters argue that the drawing of majority-minority districts has
resulted in an increased number of minority representatives in elected offices.
Critics, meanwhile, contend that the establishment of majority-minority districts can
result in “packing,” which occurs when a constituency or voting group is placed within a
single district, thereby minimizing its influence in other districts. Because minority groups
tend to vote Democratic, critics argue that majority-minority districts ultimately present an
unfair advantage to Republicans by consolidating Democratic votes into a smaller
number of districts.
The Process and Community Input
• The Ward Realignment Committee will define one or more proposed maps for
consideration by the community and the Commissioners of Cambridge.
• These will be posted for feedback as well as one or more work sessions will be
scheduled to collect community input.
• The maps will be reviewed and revised based on feedback and then presented to City
Council for public hearing and adoption.
• The City Charter will be amended to reflect the new district boundaries.
Timeline
• Starting in September, the Ward Realignment Committee will begin meeting,
discussing objectives, and preparing drafts for feedback.
• A target of late-October 2021 to have options available for public feedback. This will
allow time for public feedback and City Council review, public hearing, and adoption in
2023.
• This timing is important so potential candidates for the 2024 election will know with
plenty of time before the elections in October 2024 where the boundaries are for the
district they may be interested in serving.
Demographics
The City's demographics also changed between 2010 and 2020.
The next page shows a demographic breakdown for the City as a whole and also by each
(current) ward:
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The ward boundaries set after the 2010 Census are as follows:
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Approaches
The following are a few sample scenarios City Staff identified for consideration, these can be
accepted or replaced with alternative approaches.
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Finally, here is a copy of the memo from City Manager presented to City Council at the July 24,
2023 work session:
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COUNCIL AGENDA REPORT
To: The Honorable Mayor Rideout and the Commissioners of Cambridge
From: Tom Carroll, City Manager
Date: July 21, 2023
Subject: Council Agenda Report, Cambridge Ward Realignment Process
______________________________________________________________________________
In March, while discussing possible changes to the City’s charter addressing special elections, staff
noted that the City should devote attention to adjusting the ward boundaries because of changes in
population between 2010 and 2020. While the Council had a robust conversation around the charter
in March, the imminent need for a special election required these topics to be deferred until after the
June special election.
A work session will be held at 5 p.m. on August 14th to discuss possible charter amendments to clarify
special elections, vacancies, etc. The City Attorney and I have been working since the special election
with staff from the Board of Elections to propose amendments for Council consideration and
additional public input. (Please note that a work session on this topic was contemplated for July 24th
but additional time is necessary to prepare staff recommendations so this charter-focused work session
will be held on August 14th instead.) Nevertheless, the City should address ward readjustments with a
heightened sense of urgency given that the 2024 city general election is approaching.
Attached to this CAR is an excellent working paper from Special Projects Coordinator Cheryl Hannan
on three general approaches to rebalancing the five wards. Because of our community’s history of
racial discrimination, the work of an ad hoc committee should be done with great sensitivity and full
transparency. Ms. Hannan frames three approaches:
1. Equal populations in all five wards. This approach would require all five ward boundaries
to change but would mean that each commissioner represents the same number of
constituents, 2,628 persons.2
2. Minimal change to 2010 remain within +/- 5%. This approach falls within the plus or
minus 5% legal requirement and keeps the maximum number of residents in their current
ward. Difference in population by ward would be similar to 2010’s population distribution.
3. Reducing the two largest wards (1 and 2) slightly to increase the smallest ward (5). This
is somewhat of a modification to the second approach, but attempts to make sure that Ward
2 does not have the most people represented by one commissioner. This would lead to an
outcome where 1, 2, and 4 are very close in population, and wards 3 and 5 have smaller
populations per commissioner. Again, this would be done within the +/- 5% tolerances. This
slight modification to the minimal change approach described above recognizes that Ward 2
has had a history of higher populations with diluted representation.
2 Please keep in mind that platted subdivisions that are experiencing new home construction are likely to have significant
changes to ward populations in wards 1, 2, 4, and 5 by 2030. It is probable growth between now and 2030 will
necessitate a more substantial readjustment and ward realignment after the 2030 Census.
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Staff Approach Recommendation
I recommend that a diverse and representative ad hoc committee be established to recommend to the
Commissioners of Cambridge revised ward boundaries by the end of October, 2023. This will provide
three months for this committee to complete its work and another three months for charter changes
to be implemented in early 2024.
Because of increased scrutiny around gerrymandering, public administration and policy research
recommends a number of principles govern these processes. The following principles are considered
best practices when adjusting election maps:
• Current boundaries should be changed as little as possible to promote continuity of
political representation (unless of course current boundaries were drawn unfairly).
• Districts or wards should be compact, contiguous, and areas within the same district
should have some common set of interests and logical association with each other to
the greatest extent possible.
• Any adjustments to boundaries should not, to the extent possible, change the racial
majority of the existing district (unless of course current boundaries were drawn to
discriminate).
As Ms. Hannan points out in the attached analysis, the population in each Cambridge ward can be
plus or minus 5% from the mean population of each ward, which in 2020 is 2,628 residents. Thus,
each ward has to have no fewer than 2,497 residents and no more than 2,760 residents. Wards 2-4
have 2020 populations that fall within the 2,497 to 2,760 person range. Ward 1 has a surplus of five
residents and Ward 5 has a deficit of 93 people to be within this 5% tolerance.
Using the above best practice principles, the rebalancing process should explore ways to effectively
shift about 100 people from Ward 1 to Ward 5. This approach would leave wards 2-4 unchanged. But
this presents a challenge in that Wards 1 and 5 only border each other near Yacht Maintenance and
Clayton’s Seafood but are separated by Cambridge Creek. While it may be possible to redraw a ward
line to add residents along High Street into Ward 5, such a redrawing seems to go against the principle
of “common set of interests and logical association.”
One way to resolve this concern is to shift about 100 residents from Ward 1 into Ward 3 and then
shift a different 100 residents from Ward 3 into Ward 5. This would work somewhat similar to
Newton’s Cradle, the steel ball device that shows the transfer of energy from one side of a string of
five balls to the other. Such an approach would have no change to Wards 2 and 4, would have the
least impact to Wards 1, 3, and 5. Ward 3 would add a bit of area on its western edge formerly in Ward
1 and lose a bit of area on its eastern edge to achieve this Newtonian transfer to Ward 5. This approach
would be the simplest way to accomplish the minimal change practice while also maintaining logical
associations.
It is possible, with more analysis, that some residents in Ward 2 could also be shifted into Ward 3 so
that Ward 2 would not have the highest population with one Commissioner. If 100 residents shifted
from Ward 1 to Ward 3 using the above approach, then Ward 2 would have one representative for its
2,703 residents, the highest population per commissioner of the five wards. While this is consistent
with the “changing wards as little as possible” principle described above, it also could be argued that
the political voice of the disproportionately Black residents of Ward 2 is again diluted through this
approach. Some variation of moving a few residents from Wards 1 and 2 into Ward 3 could be
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explored, with the same Newton’s Cradle approach happening on the other end of Ward 3 to add
population to Ward 5.
Recommended Action Item
Staff recommends that the Commissioners move to undertake the following actions:
1. Invite community members to volunteer to serve in this ad hoc working group knowing that it
will require several meetings between August and October to complete its charge. These
expressions of interest should be submitted to Ms. Tyasia Johnson
tjohnson@choosecambridge.com no later than Monday, August 7th so that these can be shared
with Council a week in advance of your August 14th meeting.
2. Appoint this ad hoc Ward Realignment Committee on August 14th and direct this group to
propose recommendations to Council no later than the end of October, 2023.
3. Staff further recommends the Commissioners provide this ad hoc group guidance as to which
principles of realignment Council prefers from a policy perspective.
Fiscal Impact
Staff time is available to support this effort and there is no immediate fiscal impact.
Equity Impact
Whatever process is set forth, realigning our ward shall achieve an equitable result.
Environmental Impact
N/A
An image of Newton’s Cradle.
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