The Nassau County Temporary Districting Advisory Commission, an appointed group with 11 members (five Republicans, five Democrats and a non-voting chairman), is meeting to develop one or more redistricting plans to use for the 2013 county election. The members met in Mineola on June 28 and offered Republican and Democratic resolutions that shared similar points, yet neither passed. Indeed, there is such a dearth of commonality on the commission that the Democratic members scheduled their own public hearings in Hempstead and Oyster Bay on Monday and Wednesday of this week, and in North Hempstead’s Town Hall in Manhasset on Aug. 1.

The commission’s final act at its June meeting was to announce that it would meet again in September. In spite of previous agreements to publicize an agenda and upload minutes, there is no information beyond the commissioners’ names on the TDAC website.

The partisan divide on the advisory board is at once typical and expected, and offers Nassau’s citizens no hope that the politicos plan on putting the public first. The criteria used to remap the districts should focus on fairness and demonstrate a commitment to serving the interests of the electorate, not the elected.

We agree with the forthright principles that Common Cause/NY has recommended to guide the commission’s deliberations:

• Keep districts relatively equal in size to maintain the principle of one-person-one-vote.

• Comply with the federal Voting Rights Act.

• Respect communities of interest defined by demographic and geographic characteristics, and avoid unnecessarily cutting up school districts, villages and towns.

• Adhere to traditional redistricting factors like contiguity and compactness.

• Follow an “incumbent blind” process, meaning that the political affiliation and needs of the incumbents don’t affect district lines.

The Nassau County League of Women Voters supports many of the same principles. The League also calls for hearings in each of the county’s three towns and both cities, at daytime and evening hours, in handicapped-accessible locations, to accommodate input from as many people as possible.