Census delay should not affect Tennessee redistricting, but local governments will be on time crunch

Tennessee lawmakers should be able to pass redistricting legislation in time for the state’s 2022 elections despite a delay in census data, but local governments are on a tighter deadline for local redistricting.

The deadline for responding to the census was July 31, but it was extended to Oct. 31 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Census Bureau initially planned to provide congressional apportionment data to the states to use in redistricting by April 1, 2021, but that has been pushed that back to July 31, 2021.