So the clock is ticking on a political timebomb in Seattle and I can't stop thinking about it. I gotta do a thread about the redistricting process that's happening before the next round of council elections. (I will probably get some stuff wrong and smarter people can correct me)

The November 2013 election that passed Seattle's current council district established the districts we have now. According to this ( https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattles-wildly-uneven-growth-is-rewriting-seattle-city-council-district-elections-and-shifting-political-clout/) great piece by Gene Balk the difference between the most populous district (3) and the least (2) was approximately 5%

But those districts were locked in already. They were not created by any transparent process. Which leads to what the charter now says we need to do to draw new ones! And we need to do it by the next city council election!

STEP 1: By 10/31/2022, the Mayor picks 2 people, the council picks 2 people (by 2/3 vote) for a Districting Commission. Those four people pick a fifth person by a majority vote. No one can be: elected official (except PCO), a lobbyist, a candidate, or a City employee.

STEP 2: Within 2 months the commission appoints a "districting master" who is "qualified by education, training and experience to draw a districting plan". If they can't find someone the Mayor appoints them. They have to hold a public forum in each district.

STEP 3: The deadline for new district maps is March 15 of 2023. Except, candidates will have to have declared way before that. Shaun Scott declared in November, which is before the deadline to have a district master. But the charter doesn't say how early the process can start.

The districts: From the charter: "District boundaries shall be drawn to produce compact and contiguous districts that are not gerrymandered" OK, though the US supreme court says they can't define what gerrymandering is.
But here's the kicker...

"The population of the largest district shall exceed the population of the smallest by no more than one percent."
That means the current districts need to change a LOT. They were originally 5% different and then the districts grew by varying amounts, from 11% in D5 to 37% in D7.

Based on today's population estimates, the smallest district cannot vary by much more than 1,000 people than the largest. A very small window. This makes me think of a lot of logistical problems like the sizes of election precincts but hewing to clean lines will be impossible.

The largest district in 2023 is definitely going to be D7.
If they had to create a new D7 now it would have to push around 17,000 people into different district. D3 would have to push out over 5,000 people. D5 would need to add more than 8,000.

Here's a quick chart showing how each district would have to change if we did this now.

Obviously the districts "losing" population would likely become more concentrated around their dense centers. This has wide-reaching and obvious impacts on the representation in those districts, and on the others. /End thread but probably not.

Oh, and the City Council or Mayor have nothing to do with the commission after they appoint their people. It will take a 3/5 vote of the Districting Commission to approve the maps. "The plan shall become effective upon filing."