Request By:
Mr. Earl Fields
Leslie County Court Clerk
P.O. Box 1050
Hyden, Kentucky 41749
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of June 30 in which you raise the following questions:
"1. Does House Bill No. 27 freeze all voting Precinct boundaries and Magisterial Districts as is until 1982?
"2. If redistricting can be done now, by whom?
"3. Is if mandatory to change precincts with 700 or more registered voters? "
Our response to your initial question would be in the affirmative insofar as voting precinct changes are concerned. This Act does not freeze magisterial district boundaries. House Bill 27 prohibits, as of July 15, the alteration of any precinct boundary until the end of the 1982 regular session or until redistricting legislation is passed at an intervening special session of the legislature.
Our response to your second question is that redistricting the magisterial districts may be accomplished under the terms of KRS 67.045 at any time as long as it is not within 120 days prior to any primary election for justice of peace. This is true irrespective of H.B. 27's freeze on precinct boundaries. In initiating reapportionment proceedings the county judge/executive must publish notice of the planned reapportionment in accordance with Ch. 424 KRS, and proceed to appoint commissioners to reapportion the county as provided in the referred to statute.
In response to your third question, the present statute concerning the manner of the changing of precincts, namely KRS 117.055, no longer mandatorily requires that voting precincts shall not exceed 700 registered voters. As a mater of fact, the 1980 legislature amended this statute to change the method of determining the size of the precincts by eliminating the requirement that it be based on the number of registered voters and providing in its place that it shall be determined by the number of votes cast at the last regular election. For your information, we quote the following excerpt of House Bill 340 amending KRS 117.055:
". . . Without exception they shall review the boundaries of all election precincts exceeding seven hundred (700) votes cast in the last regular election [registered voters] prior to each primary election. Consideration to the division of said election precincts should be based on the anticipated growth factor within the specified boundaries; however, the county board of elections shall not be prohibited from dividing election precincts in excess of seven hundred (700) votes cast in the last regular election [registered voters] or less than seven hundred (700) votes cast in the last regular election [registered voters] if they elect to do so. . . ."