While 17 states near the finish line, FL redistricting in public eye has barely begun

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FairDistricts advocates wary of delays, barriers to citizen input

Seventeen states are way ahead of Florida in proposing new voting maps mandated by population changes documented by the 2020 Census, according to national redistricting trackers.

Indiana, Maine, Nebraska, and Oregon have finished drawing their new maps, and 13 more states have published proposed maps, according to FiveThirtyEight, a website named for the 538 members of the electoral college and owned by the Walt Disney Company, and All About Redistricting, a website hosted by Loyola Law School. Maps for OhioTexas, and a handful of other states are complete enough to have drawn lawsuits challenging their allegedly partisan motives.

Meanwhile, the Florida Legislature is still educating its redistricting committees about how the monumental task is supposed to be accomplished. The committees met for the first time last month and reconvene this week.

No maps have been drafted in public — but there has been plenty of time for map ideas to germinate in private, since raw Census data was released in April, followed by formatted data in August, showing substantial population growth in influential central Florida.

Plans for gathering recommendations from citizens, other than by submitting comments through the state’s newly launched redistricting website, had not been announced as of Friday.

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