Guide No. 142:

Atlas of Split Voting Precincts in the City of Dallas, 1991

Scope and Contents

Color photocopied bound map series.

Collection consists of two copies of a set of color maps showing split voting precincts in the City of Dallas as of November 5, 1991. U.S. District Judge Jerry Buchmeyer, who ruled in 1991 that Dallas' Council election system was unfair to minorities, ordered new elections under a 14-district plan and directed the city's redistricting commission to draw the new boundaries.

The commission agreed there needed to be at least seven council districts in which ethnic minorities were the majority population. That number was the minimum goal because that was half the districts being drawn, and because African-American and Hispanic citizens then made up slightly more than half the city's 1,000,000+ population.

The City of Dallas used computer models that enabled the redistricting staff to split voting precincts and census tracts to achieve the racial composition desired in each district. Using 1990 U.S. Census data, the commission drew lines so that the population in the planned minority districts was about 65% of that particular racial or ethnic group. To do that, some white residents were drawn out of their predominantly white districts and into newly created black or Hispanic districts. Some black and Hispanic residents wound up in different districts. By slicing precincts and "shaving' census tracts, the city was able to keep the districts fairly balanced in terms of overall population and to add minorities or whites to a particular district. As a result, a few of the city's 293 voting precincts fell into three different "split" council districts.

The Atlas of Split Voting Precincts was created by the Bruton Center for Development Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas and used during the redistricting process by City Secretary Robert S. Sloan.

Detailed Description of the Collection