Correction: June 20, 2012

I inadvertantly left the link/citation off one item in this morning’s email. The following item should have linked to this story in the Augusta Chronicle. My apology.

The federal court that redrew district lines for the Augusta Commission and Richmond County Board of Education declined to make any changes in light of public comments on the court-drawn maps.

In a 32-page opinion issued Tuesday, Hall declined to incorporate the changes requested by parties in a federal lawsuit filed after the General Assembly failed to implement a new district plan based on 2010 census data.

“I’m a little disappointed with the fact that he gave the plaintiffs and the commission an opportunity to review and submit what we felt were very relevant changes, and they were not considered,” said Augusta Commissioner Bill Lockett, who served on a local committee that developed a district map plan – known as 3R – which failed to gain approval in the Republican-dominated Georgia Senate.

In his opinion, Hall said making the suggested changes would disrupt the small deviations from ideal population size that his map accomplished.

The map includes eight single-member districts that deviate from an ideal size of 25,069 residents by less than 0.5 percent, and two super districts that deviate from an ideal size of 100,275 by 0.3 percent.

It meets the criteria of one person, one vote, Hall wrote, and the Voting Rights Act’s prohibitions against diluting minority voting strength or worsening minority populations’ opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. Because it is devised by a federal judge, the map does not require clearance by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Five of the districts in Hall’s plan are more than 60 percent black, while District 6’s majority black population is 52.43 percent black and 54.26 percent black or mixed-race. The south Augusta district has been represented by a white commissioner and school board members since consolidation.

Using the Georgia Legislative and Congressional Reapportionment Office as his technical adviser, Hall said he created a map that minimally changed existing district lines, preserving at least 74.19 percent of the “core constituency” of each district.