(Image/via ma.legislature.gov)
NORTHBOROUGH – All Northborough residents now will be in the same senate district while three of the town’s precincts will be represented in the state House of Representatives by the newly-created 19th Worcester District.
All four of Northborough’s precincts will now be represented by Sen. Harriette Chandler (D-Worcester) after the town had previously been split, with three precincts being represented by Sen. Jamie Eldridge (D-Acton).
In the House of Representatives, Northborough currently is represented by the 12th Worcester District of Rep. Meghan Kilcoyne (D-Northborough) and the 4th Middlesex District of Rep. Danielle Gregoire (D-Marlborough).
That has been the case for 10 years, Town Clerk Andy Dowd said during a Nov. 8 Board of Selectmen meeting.
Under the new legislative districts, Precinct 4 will still be represented by Kilcoyne, but Northborough’s remaining precincts will belong to the newly-created Worcester 19th District.
That district will also include Westborough, Southborough and a section of Framingham.
The representative for the 19th District will be elected next year.
These changes will take effect for the 2022 election.
Selectmen approve precinct map
As these changes take effect, the Board of Selectmen also approved new precincts to go into effect on Dec. 31.
According to Dowd, Northborough is required to redraw its precincts every 10 years following the United States Census.
Precincts must be balanced in size. Additionally, there can only be 4,000 residents in a precinct.
The 2020 census put Northborough’s population over 15,000 for the first time, landing at 15,741, Dowd said.
Dowd said he wasn’t expecting the population number to be that high.
“I will add, there seems to be some anomalies in the data this year,” he said. “Obviously, this all happened during COVID. The numbers were delayed. The process was delayed. So, a lot of communities are seeing numbers that they weren’t really expecting.”
Regardless, because Northborough’s population is still under 16,000, all of its residents will fit in the town’s four existing precincts. All Northborough residents will also continue to vote at Melican Middle School.
Dowd said the town did need to make slight adjustments to the precinct borders to keep the precincts of similar size.
Impacted voters will receive a notice in the mail.
“The good news for us and for the voters in Northborough is that it does simplify our representation,” Dowd said of larger changes impacting Northborough’s delegation to the state legislature.
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