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13 members selected for Michigan's Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission

Posted at 8:09 PM, Aug 17, 2020
and last updated 2020-08-17 20:09:15-04

A random drawing of names to join Michigan's first independent citizens redistricting commission happened Monday afternoon.

The Michigan Department of State hosted the random drawing of 13 names at 1:30 p.m. by Rehmann LLC, an independent accounting firm.

After Proposal 2 passed in the 2018 election, the Michigan Constitution was amended to allow the independent citizens commission to re-draw congressional and state legislative districts, a process that is done every 10 years after the Census.

Applications were open earlier this year, and on June 1, the Secretary of State's Office randomly selected 200 semifinalists. 60 semifinalists had to identify as Democrats, 60 as Republicans and 80 as Independents.

According to the Secretary of State's Office, there were 9,367 applications processed to serve on the commission. Those applications were the ones that included the required information and were property notified.

Last month, the majority and minority leaders in the State Senate and State House removed 20 applicants from the semifinalist pool for any reason. Each of the leaders removed five names.

That left 180 names, and during Monday's drawing, the final commission will be set with four Republicans, four Democrats and five Independents. You can view the list of the pool of 180 applicants here.

The applicants who were randomly selected are:

M. Rothhorn of Lansing
Juanita Curry of Detroit
Dustin Joseph Witjes of Ypsilanti
Brittni Kellom of Detroit
Erin Wagner of Charlotte
Cynthia Orton of Battle Creek
Douglas James Clark of Rochester Hills
Rhonda Lange of Reed City
Janic Vallette of Highland
James Edward Decker of Fowlerville
Richard Weiss of Saginaw
Steven Lett of Interlochen
Anthony Eid of Orchard Lake