MARSHALL — Minnesota counties and cities are still waiting to learn how data from the 2020 census will affect voting districts, and the delays could also mean a time crunch for planning Lyon County redistricting and elections next year, county staff say.

Census data used for drawing voting district lines is supposed to be delivered to states by the end of September, said Lyon County Auditor/Treasurer E.J. Moberg. Originally, the U.S. Census Bureau had originally planned to deliver the data earlier this year, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the process.

“With that coming together, the timeline would be relatively dense” for planning local elections next year, Moberg said.

Moberg and Lyon County Administrator Loren Stomberg gave Lyon County commissioners an update on the redistricting process Tuesday morning. One notable change to the elections timeline for 2022 is that there will be fewer dates that special elections can be held. Instead of having uniform election dates in February, April and May, “There won’t be any special elections after February,” Moberg said.

There will be different deadlines next year for legislative districts, voting precincts and county voting districts to set new boundaries to go along with changes in population over the past 10 years. Moberg said the intended deadline for legislative redistricting will be Feb. 15. The precinct and ward redistricting deadline, which in Lyon County will affect the city of Marshall, is March 29. The deadline for county and other redistricting will be April 26.

When it comes to possibly re-drawing county commissioner districts, “The big thing is going to hinge on where the city (of Marshall) comes in with their wards,” Stomberg said. Some of Lyon County’s commissioner districts include specific voting wards within the city of Marshall.

Population data collected by the 2020 census will help determine if voting wards or commissioner district boundaries need to be re-drawn. But population changes may also determine whether some county commissioner seats are up for election in 2022, Moberg said. If a district sees a redistricting population change by more than 5% of its average population, the commissioner in that district would need to run for re-election.

“There could be some shifting,” Moberg said of county redistricting. “I’m not sure we’re going to get to that level.” The county won’t know for sure what will happen until they get the census data, and also learn what happens with Marshall’s city wards.