Will you vote on March 13? Find out here
Are you confused about whether you’ll be voting in the March 13 special election for Congress?
The special election is to fill the 18th Congressional District seat left vacant by former Congressman Tim Murphy, who announced he would retire in October 2017. The March 13 election is only for those in the 18th Congressional District, an area that consists of portions of Allegheny, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties. If you don’t live in the 18th Congressional District, you won’t be able to vote.
Compounding the confusion was a court ruling in January to change Pennsylvania’s district boundaries. A new district map was released by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Feb. 19.
The map which will be used in the special election was released in 2011. The case decided recently by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court claimed those districts were gerrymandered, or drawn to unfairly give an advantage to one political party over another. This accounts for strange, meandering district boundaries which often don’t respect municipal, county or regional boundaries.
For instance, in the village of Van Voorhis in Washington County, only 14 people are eligible to vote in the special election because they are within the 18th District boundary. Morgan Township in Greene County is split in half by district lines. You may be voting March 13, but not your neighbor across the road won’t be.
While the new district map will be in effect for the May primary, barring any federal court decisions, it does not affect the March 13 election. So if you’ve voted in the 18th District in the past, you’re still voting in it for the special election. Plus, the new district map means most voters currently in the 18th District, including the two main candidates, won’t even be living in the new 18th District. Both Rick Saccone, of Elizabeth Township, and Conor Lamb, of Mt. Lebanon, find themselves living outside the district in which they’re now running.
And to make it even more confusing, while you will vote March 13, 2018, to fill the vacant 18th District seat, you could be voting again in the May 15, 2018, primary in your brand new Congressional District for new representatives. You can see the new district lines here.
Since most people just go to the polls on a regular election day, you may not be sure in which district you live. To help, we have provided several tools to determine if you’re in the 18th Congressional District.
Search by Zipcode - click here
Search by Municipality - click here
Interactive Map-
If you’re still not sure, GovTrack has a handy tool to type in your home address to determine which district you are in. The link is https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members.
Special elections are rare, so how can anyone predict turnout?
Find out which new congressional district you are in
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