Why I Dug Into Oregon’s New Voting Districts
So last Thursday, I brewed coffee and plopped down at my kitchen table. My buddy Rick called ranting about Oregon’s redistricting mess. He couldn’t make heads or tails of the new voting zones. I figured hey, maybe I could map this out for my neighbors.
First thing I did? Grabbed my laptop and searched “Oregon district changes 2024”. Big mistake. Government sites showed these PDFs with tiny, blurry maps. Zoomed in till pixels looked like Minecraft blocks – still couldn’t see street boundaries clearly. My old eyes were watering after 20 minutes.
The Game-Changer Moment
Then I remembered that comparison tool I used last year for census data. Opened Photoshop, slapped two maps side by side:
- Old 2022 map with those chunky districts eating whole counties
- New 2024 draft looking like spaghetti tossed on a plate
Traced over both with different colored markers on tracing paper – red for old boundaries, blue for new ones. Suddenly spotted three major changes:
- Portland’s District 3 got carved up like a Christmas turkey, shoving Southeast neighborhoods into District 5
- Bend’s growing so fast its district sprouted a weird tentacle reaching toward sisters
- Coastline districts absorbed trailer parks that were previously voting inland
Turning Chaos Into Clarity
Took my scribbled tracing papers down to Kinkos. The clerk helped me scan and overlay them digitally. Bam! The disappearing/reappearing zones glowed bright as neon signs when we adjusted transparency. Printed poster-sized versions for my garage wall using sticky notes to flag population shift stats.
When Rick came over Sunday, he stared at my monstrosity for two minutes flat and goes: “Holy crap – so THAT’S why my polling place moved!” Nailed it. Sometimes all it takes is markers, tracing paper, and a whole pot of coffee.
