Keep Population Deviation LOW!
Congressional districts are held to a standard of around 0.75% population deviation, at a maximum. I implore the commission to keep population deviations as within this standard for our state senate and state house districts. Population deviations, while inevitable, produce unequal voting power for each district. For example, a state senate district with 10,000 fewer people than the target population would give voters in that district much more voting power than a neighboring district that is 10,000 people over the target. Simply put, the voters' ballots in the first district would matter more than those in the second. However, while this population deviation would be far outside what is legal for congressional districts, it would be perfectly legal within state senate districts. Why?!? Do the votes for our state's own government matter less than our congressional districts, despite the fact that we interact more with the state government in our day to day lives? It seems that way, as population deviation as high as 10% is legal. Even Fair Districts PA, who did produce better maps than the current set, have a State Senate population deviation of 5%. That is WAY too big!!! We need to hold ourselves to the same standard everywhere: 'One Person, One Vote'. Letting votes count for more by letting deviations get high is simply unjust, even if it would mean crossing borough boundaries to even out the populations. I think that it is well worth the tradeoff if we split more cities in order to even out populations. Please, heed this call. We can't let voters' voices matter unequally simply because of where they live. They must all be equal. Thank you for your time.