Maryland Citizens Redistricting Commission
To Begin Third Round of Public Meetings on October 6;
More Than 2,100 Tuned in/Participated in
First Two Rounds on Zoom and YouTube
Deadline for Public to Submit Maps to Commission
is Tomorrow Friday, September 24
(September 23, 2021) BALTIMORE, MD – The Maryland Citizens Redistricting Commission (Citizens Commission), a balanced commission created by Governor Larry Hogan to draw fair and representative legislative and congressional district maps for the 2022 elections, is continuing their map drawing process with public map submissions due to the Commission by end of day tomorrow, Friday, September 24.
Since May 5, the Citizens Commission has held a total of 26 open public meetings, all of which were available on Zoom and YouTube. The 26 meetings were a combination of public meetings, where testimony and public input were encouraged, and working sessions, where the public could watch. Information for each of the meetings including maps discussed, agendas, video recordings, and transcripts can be found at https://redistricting.maryland.gov/Pages/past-meetings.aspx.
In addition to more than 2,100 citizens attending one of the meetings on Zoom or YouTube, social media posts about the meetings resulted in more than 42,500 impressions on Twitter and a reach of more than 50,000 on Facebook.
Following the end of the public map submission period on September 24, the Citizens Commission will consider comments received either by email or during Commission meetings. They also will continue their review of all of the public maps submitted as they draw their final maps prior to the beginning of the Round 3 meetings on October 6. Every Wednesday in October at 6:00 p.m., the Commission will hold a public meeting where the people of Maryland are encouraged to register and provide comments on the proposed final maps. A list of all upcoming meetings is here.
As with all of the Commission meetings where there was public testimony, you must register to provide LIVE TESTIMONY in advance of the meeting. For more information about how to provide testimony, either in advance or during an upcoming meeting, please click here, then click on the specific meeting. Additional meeting details will be posted in the next week. Each meeting, which includes closed captioning and Spanish translation, will conclude upon the completion of testimony from the last speaker, and any discussion among the commissioners.
The four Round 3 meetings in October are the final of three rounds of public meetings – the first round was a listening tour to discuss redistricting in general; the second round is complete and included dozens of hours of discussion about citizen maps and DRAFT Commission redistricting maps; and the third round begins October 6 to discuss the Commission’s legislative and congressional maps.
We encourage people to continue submitting comments electronically and to send any redistricting questions to redistricting.commission@maryland.gov.
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