Guilford County Chairman Skip Alston's Jig Saw Gerrymandered Redistricting Map That Should Be Dead on Arrival

EXHIBIT A

Chairman Skip Alston Proposed Redistricting Map 2011


EXHIBIT B

Chairman Skip Alston Redistricting Map on Precinct Overlay 2011

Above in Exhibit A is the "mystery map" that was turned in to the Guilford County Legal Department from the Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston.

A 7-9-2011 Greensboro News and Record above the fold headline story titled "Maps Drawn on Party Lines" CLICKHERE . An interesting excerpt:

"Alston said two of the maps he submitted were put together by county staff under his direction. The third, he said, he put together with a group of “political advisers” he declined to name.

“They’re not big players, just some people who know the area and the issues whose opinions I trust,” Alston said. “They’re just an informal advisory committee.”

The Chairman directed the creation of all 3 maps

These mystery people know the area and if you want to see what a GERRYMANDERED JIG SAW REDISTRICTING MAP THAT SHOULD BE DEAD ON ARRIVAL looks like,
take a look at Exhibit A.

Exhibit B is what Alston's map looks like when you add the precincts to the map.

Check out the 6 red circled areas on Exhibit B. This is what a blatantly gerrymandered map looks like where they have to wrap around, barely sliver through to get the desired results.

Looking at the numbered districts in Exhibit A, let's start out by talking about district # 5 where we have the most ridiculous gerrymandered aspect of the whole map.  This district stretches from the most eastern part of Guilford County in the town of Whitsett all the way south and barely underneath High Point precinct 23 to split the City of High Point in half and gerrymander all the way up Eastchester Drive to the intersection of Wendover Avenue. The map in exhibit B shows the 2 red circles where the small sliver of this map draws these citizens into District 5.  They split the Town of Pleasant Garden in half, which if you want to keep communities in a whole district to not disenfranchise, then why split the city in half?

Also in the Skip Alston and his mystery people map is District #2, which stretches all the way up to the Town of Oak Ridge, but as you can see from the map the Town of Oak Ridge is split in half between OR 1 and OR 2 , so now we have 2 smaller municipalities split between commissioners which should be done as little as possible or not done at all. NOTE ( My map that i submitted to the Guilford County Commissioners CLICKHERE is compact and only splits up Jamestown because of the Voting Rights Act to bring the High Point precincts over to have some of the Greensboro majority-minority areas to make them compact and feasible). On my maps Jamestown is split 3 ways which put one Jamestown area with the Adams Farm area while the Jam 5 is put in the southern and southeast district area.

Back to the map  of Chairman Alston's district #2 where we have now a district that should be mainly High Point but goes right to pick up precincts in Greensboro which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.  So now we could have a situation in High Point where feasibly not one representative could be from the city because #5, #1, and #2 all take in other areas of Guilford County. Wouldn't that be nice to have a City in the top ten in population for North Carolina not have any representative from it's city in county government?

Let's take a closer look at Exhibit A to show you the absurdity of this map. District #5 wraps around #1 to sliver up to split with #2. Then #8 darts north through Greensboro to wrap around #7 and then back up off of battleground to #4 . #3 with just a little area that starts in Greensboro off of Jefferson road that then squeezes down on battleground avenue to a very small area, only to jump into the Stokesdale and Summerfield area of the county and splits Oak Ridge N.C. in half.  Then we have #2 which starts on western side of Guilford County up towards Oak Ridge with the split of Oak Ridge with #2, then east into Greensboro, which makes not one bit of sense.
As you can see from the so called "mystery map" from Skip Alston, with the help from political advisers who want to keep the same non-competitive gerrymandered maps for the next 10 years , this map should be dead on arrival. So in Chairman Alston's own words this map should be "DOA to the DOJ."

It is time for all citizens to speak up about this issue. After seeing this map turned in from the chairman, it is time to fight back for having sensible compact districts in Guilford County, not the absurd complete gerrymandered crap that Skip Alston has thrust upon us.
If you want to see all the maps that have been turned into the Guilford County Legal Department, you will not be able to see them on the Guilford County web site. 

They are still not up.

But you can CLICKHERE for the local GOP maps.

GOP MAP 1
GOP MAP 2
GOP MAP 3
Keith Brown Map
Skip Alston Map
Staff Friendly Map
Staff Market Map

The time is now to let your Guilford County Commissioners know how you feel, and it is also time to let your local municipalities know how you feel about this map, or any of these maps, because it will effect us for the next 10 years or more. Get involved.

Here is a link to the Guilford County web site to let them know how you feel, CLICKHERE