Nearly two months after an appeals court threw out Broome County’s original legislative map, a new plan has been enacted and continues to spark controversy among county residents.

The new map, redrawn after the legislature was forced to discard their original districts in December 2023, was drafted to keep the Town of Maine in one district. The previous map, where Maine was split into three, exceeded the legal limit of a five percent population deviation between districts. After a Thursday night meeting, County Executive Jason Garnar signed the new maps into law on Jan. 12, despite ongoing protests from residents who called on Garnar to veto the maps.

In a statement, Garnar explained why he enacted the new maps despite protests of a rushed process.

”After consulting with our county attorney and listening to members of the public, I have signed Local Law [No.] 8 of 2023 into law, which establishes a map for county legislative districts,” Garnar said. “This map addresses the changes ordered by the court. With the 2024 general election process starting next month, it is imperative that Broome County residents know what their election districts look like.”

Despite his reasoning, dozens of residents continue to criticize the redrawn district maps, including Fair Maps for Broome Inc. — a nonprofit corporation promoting the rights of voters, including the right to fair legislative redistricting. On Jan. 8, the group wrote a letter to Garnar urging him to veto the new map.

In the letter, Matthew Johnson, the group’s president and a Binghamton resident, wrote that while Fair Maps for Broome Inc. recognized that the redrawn map was an improvement on the previous plan, they suspected the new maps of being “drawn to advantage the majority party in the County Legislature” which was described as both “illegal under [New York state] law and unfair to the voters of Broome County.”

According to Johnson, Fair Maps for Broome Inc.’s biggest concern is the maps’ impact on county residents’ right to vote.

“The headline for us is that we are concerned that the new map that the county enacted earlier this month may violate the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of [New York state] by diluting the vote of racial and ethnic minorities in Binghamton and in the UClub section of Vestal,” Johnson wrote in an email.

On Jan. 15, days after Garnar signed off on the redrawn legislative district map, Fair Maps for Broome Inc., in a press release, expressed opposition to “the super majority[‘s]” actions after a month of its “final legal defeat.” The group referenced previous advocacy against the redrawn maps and expressed concerns over whether Garnar or the county attorney did their “due diligence” in evaluating the redrawn map’s legality, as Garnar signed the new map in under 24 hours.

Fair Maps for Broome Inc., in the release, mentioned a past incident when residents had warned legislators that the district map could be illegal.

“Back in 2021 members of the public warned legislators and the county executive that that map violated Municipal Home Rule Law,” the release reads. ”These officials insisted that the map was legal, then proceeded to lose in trial and appellate court — in the process learning of a law passed in 2009 that had bearing on the case. Not the most inspiring track record for our county government.”