The League is committed to ensuring that district and ward maps are drawn transparently and with full public participation to protect communities of interest. 

A community of interest is a group of people who share cultural or historic characteristics or economic interests; are contiguous on a map; and share a common bond linked to a set of public policy issues that would be affected by legislation. When voters who share a common bond and legislative issues are in one district, they can more effectively speak with one voice and attain greater priority in the eyes of our legislators. 

The City of St. Louis has a challenge in cutting the number of wards from 28 to 14. "Good process makes good policy; this was not good process,” Kathleen Farrell told aldermen on Nov. 3. She criticized the early release of draft ward maps for St. Louis City, saying there hadn’t been enough time for the public to react to the tentative plan and the Board of Aldermen should have sought participation from neighborhood groups and others long before starting its work. She also said the methodology used to devise the map should have been disclosed and explained in advance.

Through the new Missouri Community Mapping Grant Project, LWV of Metro St. Louis submitted dozens of community maps in Senate Districts 2, 10, 15, 22 and 23. Those maps will be used by experts at Washington University and Tufts University to develop sample legislative maps to share with the members of the House and Senate redistricting commissions. 

To learn more about redistricting in Missouri, go to https://lwvmissouri.org/fair-maps-2/