§ 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.

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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.