When Douglas County began its redistricting process, the election commission had a meeting with 25 people from the community who had concerns over the changes. Dave Phipps, Douglas County Election Commissioner, says the Omaha Community Coalition was formed from that initial group. Phipps has met with the coalition three times. He says the first meeting was a get to know you session to find out their thoughts and concerns.
During the second meeting, the election commissioner provided the coalition with background information on the redistricting process. At the most recent meeting, Phipps and the group started talking about proposed changes to the current polling places and precincts.
"Now we are kind of looking at, of those that were closed, are there some that we should reopen? Are there some precincts that need to be changed around a little bit to make them a little bit easier on voters to get to their polling place? You know, what sort of things are we going to do before the general election in November? And so we are going to make a number of changes between the elections and then get that information out to people as well.”
Phipps says he and the Omaha Community Coalition will discuss final thoughts and ideas in the next week. After that, he says the information will be released for public feedback over a period of 10 days.
Phipps says the plan will be available online at votedouglascounty.com and at all Omaha public libraries.
He expects to implement the changes in the plan by the end of July.