To the Editor:

Too few voters know about the proposal to divide St. Lawrence County into four Assembly districts, but most of those who do know are very upset, and quite rightly.

A recent North Country Now poll reported that of 221 respondents, 88.7% opposed the new redistricting plan.

Virtually all of the seventy-four comments were hostile, often violently, sometimes unprintably so.

The real issue here is not so much gerrymandering (of which both parties are guilty) but disenfranchisement.

The danger is that the views and interests of St. Lawrence voters will be disregarded if the county is broken up electorally, and its fragments annexed by neighboring, but dissimilar, regions.

At present, St. Lawrence County supplies roughly half the electorate for each of two Assembly districts. Both of our current Assembly members are therefore accountable, in some measure, to St. Lawrence voters, since we have a significant share in hiring and firing them. We thus have two (not necessarily harmonious) voices in Albany.

Under the new plan, one of these voices would be lost.

Outside the River District, which would see little change, most of the county would be hived off and annexed to districts in neighboring counties.

SLC residents would be a small minority in each of the three new districts, two of which extend southward into very different economic and demographic zones. Candidates could win any of these new districts while completely ignoring our concerns.

“I don’t think it’s fair to the people of St. Lawrence Country,” says Marc Butler, the Republican whose district would be extended into the center of the county, “I don’t think they’re going to get the representation they deserve.” (Butler’s home in Newport is 170 miles south of what would become the northern border of his new district.)

St. Lawrence County has interests distinct from those of our neighbors to the south and east, and we need to be heard in Albany.

To be heard, we need representatives who live near us, understand our concerns, and depend upon our votes. T

hat means we need compact Assembly districts in which our votes will matter: we can’t afford to be politically chopped to bits, as the proposed redistricting would do.

Governor Cuomo can and should put a stop to this destructive nonsense.

William Hunt

Canton