Whose Line is it Anyway? Phoenixville, Chesco Quibble Over Redistricting

The Phoenixville Borough Council has a simple message for Chester County Voter Services: Do your job.

According to The Times Herald, after spending months drawing up new wards to balance the population in the borough, Phoenixville’s redistricting has been put on hold because of a disagreement over whose responsibility it is to establish new precinct lines.

The problem now is this: if the 2013 elections were held today, with new wards but without new precincts, Phoenixville voters would have to use two ballots.

Chester County Director of Voter Services Jim Forsythe maintains the job falls to the borough, while the council says that when it established new wards, its redistricting work was done.

The facts, it seems, are on Phoenixville’s side.

Act 43, also known as “The New Borough Code,” was passed in May by the state legislature and went into effect on July 16. The legislation, according to the paper, holds Pennsylvania boroughs responsible for mapping their own wards, but doesn’t speak to any additional redistricting responsibilities.

“It is the duty of the county because they conduct the election…It’s not implied, but you can more or less infer (that) from the election codes,” the director of government affairs for the Pennsylvania Association of Boroughs told the paper.

Read the full story here.

Previous Patch reporting on Phoenixville's ward redrawing efforts:

• Borough Council to Vote on New Wards in November
• Phoenixville's Ward Redistricting Almost Complete
• Borough Redistricting Committee Mulls Changes
• Borough Begins Redrawing Wards