# Voting District **Voting district** is the Census Bureau's umbrella term for the local areas that actually run elections. The Bureau defines it as "a generic term used to represent areas that administer elections such as precincts, election districts, and wards" — a definition that describes the function and declines to fix the form, because there is no national standard for what a precinct is. A voting district exists in census geography when a state chooses to submit one. States do that through the Voting District Project, a phase of the decennial Redistricting Data Program run under [[Public Law 94-171]]. For the 2030 cycle the Bureau plans to announce that phase in late 2027, with an initial update cycle beginning in early 2028 and verifications in early 2029 and early 2030; counts for voting districts are then delivered only to states that took part. Because voting districts are assembled from whole census blocks, the earlier block boundary phase constrains what a precinct line can follow. > [!note] Stub > This is a short entry that hasn't been fully written yet. ## See also - [[Census Geography Tree]] — voting districts among the geographies that do not nest in the standard hierarchy - [[Census Block]] · [[Block Boundary Suggestion Project]] · [[Public Law 94-171]] - [[How a Ballot Is Counted]] · [[How a Redistricting Map Is Drawn and Challenged]]