§ 4-100 — Election districts; creation and alteration

§ 4-100. Election districts; creation and alteration. 1. The State of\nNew York shall be divided into election districts which shall be the\nbasic political subdivision for purposes of registration and voting as\nprovided in this chapter.\n 2. The creation, consolidation, division or alteration of election\ndistricts shall be done by the board of elections.\n 3. a. Each election district shall be in compact form and may not be\npartly within and partly without a ward, town, city, a village which has\nfive thousand or more inhabitants and is wholly within one town, the\ncontiguous property of a college or university which contains three\nhundred or more registrants who are registered to vote at any address on\nsuch contiguous property, or a county legislative, assembly, senatorial\nor congressional district. Except as provided in paragraph b of this\nsubdivision, election district boundaries, other than those boundaries\nwhich are coterminous with the boundaries of those political\nsubdivisions and college or university properties mentioned in this\nparagraph, must be streets, rivers, railroad lines or other permanent\ncharacteristics of the landscape which are clearly visible to any person\nwithout the need to use any technical or mechanical device. An election\ndistrict shall contain not more than nine hundred fifty registrants\n(excluding registrants in inactive status) or, with the approval of the\ncounty board of elections, not more than two thousand registrants\n(excluding registrants in inactive status), but any election district\nmay be divided for the convenience of the voters.\n b. An election district in a city or town may divide a block, provided\nthat the board of elections prepares an alphabetical list of all the\nstreets in such city or town with the election district for each such\nstreet. If any such street is divided between two or more election\ndistricts, then such list must contain the lowest and highest street\nnumbers in each such district and if the odd and even numbers on a\nstreet are in different districts, such list must contain separate\nlistings for such odd and even numbers and if there are both odd and\neven numbers in such different election districts, such list must\ncontain separate listings for such numbers. Copies of such lists shall\nbe filed and kept open to public inspection in the offices of such\nboard. One copy of each such list shall be delivered, upon request, to\nthe state board of elections and to a person or officer designated\njointly by the speaker of the assembly and the temporary president of\nthe senate. Surplus copies shall be sold at cost.\n 4. Any election district must be realigned when the total number of\nregistrants, excluding registrants in inactive status, at the time of\nthe preceding general election, exceeds the maximum number permitted by\nthis section by at least fifty registered voters.\n 5. Any creation, consolidation, division or alteration of election\ndistricts in any calendar year shall be made on or before February\nfifteenth, and shall take effect on April first, except that when\nrequired by the creation or alteration of a political subdivision, other\nthan an election district, in which candidates are to be voted for at\nthe next election, such creation, consolidation, division or alteration\nshall be made and shall take effect immediately upon creation or\nalteration of such political subdivision. No such creation,\nconsolidation, division or alteration shall be made between February\ntwentieth of a calendar year ending in seven and December first of a\ncalendar year ending in zero unless required by the creation or\nalteration of a political subdivision.\n