When you vote, you can always write in the name of a candidate, but normally your candidate choices are defined by where you live and the district boundaries for the electoral position you are considering.
Sometimes districts are very large—the nation, for example, when you vote for president, or the state, when you vote for senators or the governor. Sometimes they are very narrow, like the school district that children in your area attend. Districts for positions like state legislators or representatives to the United States Congress are defined by your address and where it falls within district boundaries defined every ten years by a Redistricting Commission.
It starts with the Census. The national census takes place every ten years and attempts to count every resident everywhere in the nation. These numbers affect how representation is apportioned at the federal and state levels. There are 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives, and the number assigned to each state is a reflection of the number of residents counted in each state.
At the federal level, the number of people allocated to each district is based on the 2020 Census, which determined that the population of Washington state, as of April 1, 2020, was 7,705,281. The number of Congressional representatives or Electoral College votes allocated to our state is 10. Each candidate to the House of Representatives must live in the district s/he represents, which, due to the Census count, should include 771,595 people.
The same is true for the 49 districts that define your representatives to the Washington state Legislature. Because of the 2020 Census results, each legislative districts should represent 157,251 people. Each district can elect two representatives and one senator. Your candidates to the state legislature, just like those to the House of Representatives, must live in the district they represent. Again, these boundaries, and the nature of the population inside them, defines the kind of representation you can expect.
Even some cities, such as Seattle and recently Everett, have defined districts to increase the chances that city council candidates, who must live in the neighborhoods they will represent, best reflect the opinions and priorities of their constituents.
So where do the state district boundaries come from? In Washington state, a redistricting commission convenes every ten years following the census to draw specific voting district lines. It is made up of four commissioners (two Republicans and two Democrats) appointed by the Legislature. The Commissioners appoint a fifth, non-voting, non-partisan chairperson. These individuals review the population figures, hold meetings to listen to public testimony, and then determine the maps that define district boundaries.
When done objectively, these considerations respect demographics and the voting rights of diverse populations to ensure adequate representation and healthy competition between parties. When done under the influence of political considerations, these district boundary maps might allow political parties to drive the choice of candidates rather than a more representative selection of the voters in the area.
For example, in 2021, the Washington State Redistricting Commission failed to meet its deadline for fair maps based on the 2020 Census. A group of citizens in central Washington initiated a lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act. This resulted in rejection of the post-deadline maps submitted by the Commission. A federal judge created and released new district maps on March 15, 2024 that give the Latino and Native American community in the Yakima Valley a better opportunity to elect candidates who truly represent them. Learn more about how this problem occurred, how the new maps affect voting, and what we can do in the future to make the process work better for voters.