New York Laws
Article 4 - Proceedings Preliminary to Registration, Enrollment and Elections
4-100 - Election Districts; Creation and Alteration.

§ 4-100. Election districts; creation and alteration. 1. The State of
New York shall be divided into election districts which shall be the
basic political subdivision for purposes of registration and voting as
provided in this chapter.

2. The creation, consolidation, division or alteration of election
districts shall be done by the board of elections.

3. a. Each election district shall be in compact form and may not be
partly within and partly without a ward, town, city, a village which has
five thousand or more inhabitants and is wholly within one town, the
contiguous property of a college or university which contains three
hundred or more registrants who are registered to vote at any address on
such contiguous property, or a county legislative, assembly, senatorial
or congressional district. Except as provided in paragraph b of this
subdivision, election district boundaries, other than those boundaries
which are coterminous with the boundaries of those political
subdivisions and college or university properties mentioned in this
paragraph, must be streets, rivers, railroad lines or other permanent
characteristics of the landscape which are clearly visible to any person
without the need to use any technical or mechanical device. An election
district shall contain not more than nine hundred fifty registrants
(excluding registrants in inactive status) or, with the approval of the
county board of elections, not more than two thousand registrants
(excluding registrants in inactive status), but any election district
may be divided for the convenience of the voters.

b. An election district in a city or town may divide a block, provided
that the board of elections prepares an alphabetical list of all the
streets in such city or town with the election district for each such
street. If any such street is divided between two or more election
districts, then such list must contain the lowest and highest street
numbers in each such district and if the odd and even numbers on a
street are in different districts, such list must contain separate
listings for such odd and even numbers and if there are both odd and
even numbers in such different election districts, such list must
contain separate listings for such numbers. Copies of such lists shall
be filed and kept open to public inspection in the offices of such
board. One copy of each such list shall be delivered, upon request, to
the state board of elections and to a person or officer designated
jointly by the speaker of the assembly and the temporary president of
the senate. Surplus copies shall be sold at cost.

4. Any election district must be realigned when the total number of
registrants, excluding registrants in inactive status, at the time of
the preceding general election, exceeds the maximum number permitted by
this section by at least fifty registered voters.

5. Any creation, consolidation, division or alteration of election
districts in any calendar year shall be made on or before February
fifteenth, and shall take effect on April first, except that when
required by the creation or alteration of a political subdivision, other
than an election district, in which candidates are to be voted for at
the next election, such creation, consolidation, division or alteration
shall be made and shall take effect immediately upon creation or
alteration of such political subdivision. No such creation,
consolidation, division or alteration shall be made between February
twentieth of a calendar year ending in seven and December first of a
calendar year ending in zero unless required by the creation or
alteration of a political subdivision.