Pulaski County Election Commission OKs school board zone boundaries and renumbering of precincts

Board also revises Pulaski County precinct boundaries

Little Rock School Board election zones
Little Rock School Board election zones

The Pulaski County Election Commission on Friday approved a "clean up" of election precinct boundary lines that has resulted in the re-numbering of nearly all of the 131 precincts.

The board approved the precinct changes at a short meeting in which it also voted 3-0 in support of revisions to the Little Rock School District's school board election zones.

Melinda Lemons, director of elections for Pulaski County, told the commissioners that her office worked with the Metroplan planning agency to correct boundary lines for the election precincts to ensure that no precinct had more than 3,000 registered voters and that boundary lines didn't split trailer parks and apartment complexes.

The commission vote on the school board election zones was done quickly with almost no discussion.

The School Board had approved the zone changes in November and submitted them for final approval by the Election Commission.



Shelby Johnson, state Geographic Information Systems officer, told the School Board last year that adjustments to the election zone boundary lines were necessary because of population shifts that occurred between the 2010 and 2020 U.S. census counts.

In drawing election zones based on the 2020 census, the Arkansas Geographic Information Systems staff sought a population of 20,121 individuals per each of the nine zones.

In the newly approved zone plan the variance is 1.66%.

The populations in the nine zones range from 19,958 in Zone 9 in northwest Little Rock -- 163 people under the target population -- to 20,292 in Zone 3, which is 171 people over the target. Zone 3 encompasses a portion of central Little Rock.

Five of the nine zones have a majority Black population: Zones 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7.

Four zones have a majority white population: Zones 4, 5, 8 and 9.

Zone 2 has the greatest Hispanic population at 32.32%.

[BOARD ZONES: Map of Little Rock's school zones not appearing above? Click here » arkansasonline.com/122lrsd/]

The new election zone plan does not place any incumbent board member into the same zone as another incumbent, thereby avoiding the possibility of current board members having to run for reelection against each other.

The Little Rock School Board could decide as soon as next week whether all nine board seats should be open for election in the November 2022 elections because of the zone boundary changes or just the two seats that were previously scheduled to be up for election this year.

Attorneys for the school district have advised that a wholesale election of the board is not required by law.

The School Board has a regularly scheduled monthly business meeting Thursday.

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