WESTBROOK – For the first time in roughly 20 years, Westbrook is updating the city’s five voting districts to reflect voter population shifts.

City Clerk Lynda Adams said Monday that the city waited to make the updates until the 2010 United States Census and the state’s own redistricting of Senate and House districts was completed.

Slated for a second and final reading in April, the update’s major changes occur in Ward 5, which will lose some area to wards 1 and 4.

“Since I started in 2008, I knew that we would probably need to make an adjustment between the wards,” Adams said. “Ward 5 had a much larger number of registered voters than the other wards. However, because redistricting is based on population and not registered voters, we had to wait for the 2010 Census to be completed.”

Adams said the ward boundary changes do not impact any of the current city councilors.

Adams said that there were a few considerations before deciding the new ward lines.

She said the city had to look at the census population blocks to “ensure the largest ward didn’t have a population that was more than 10 percent (larger than the) smallest ward. We also took into account where the new state district lines are so we could reduce the number of state ballot styles each ward would need to handle during elections.”

Adams said keeping the number of different ballots to a minimum helps to reduce errors when the election clerks are handing out ballots for the various voting districts.

She added that the Presumpscot River is now a dividing line for wards 2, 3 and 4.

“Over the years I have had many voters express frustration of not knowing what ward they are in,” she said. “I am hoping this confusion will be lessened by using significant boundaries such as Presumpscot River, Methodist Road, Mill Brook, East Bridge Street, Saco Street and Stroudwater Street.”

Adams said the only change in voting location will be Ward 4, where voters will now cast ballots at the Westbrook Community Center.

The City Council is set to approve the update at its meeting Monday, April 7.

New Ward Divisions