Associated Student Government officers, working with Evanston citizens, announced Tuesday that they will present at least four redistricting maps to the Evanston City Council at its Oct. 7 Rules Committee meeting. The maps propose to contain Northwestern students in two wards and to create two wards with black majorities.

Two ASG leaders have been working with the Citizens’ Ward Redistricting Committee, a group of Evanston residents, to develop alternate redistricting maps after proposals by aldermen drew cries of gerrymandering from residents. Several of the maps split on-campus students into three or four wards, diluting their voting power, ASG leaders said.

But ASG’s proposals present compact wards with natural boundary lines, said Jane Lee, ASG’s external relations chairwoman and one of the students involved in the mapping.

The redistricting process comes after the 2000 census showed Evanston residents were unevenly spread across the city’s nine wards.

Lee said the committee’s maps keep most on-campus students in their current wards — the First and the Seventh — allowing students to retain their voting strength.

Because the maps’ creation followed strict legal requirements, Lee said ASG’s plans may have more legality than some of the aldermen’s proposals, which weaken the political power of black voters, she said.

“One of the key legal requirements is preserving minority voters’ voting strength,” Lee said. “So by creating two black majority wards, we were doing probably a better job with the civil rights aspect than some other maps.”

However, the proposals may not receive equal consideration with other maps because they’ll be submitted after the Sept. 29 deadline. Ald. Joseph Kent (5th) said he is not certain the City Council will consider the maps, but did not rule out the possibility.

“I would have to say it really depends on what the map looks like,” said Kent, adding that the council only will review legible, logical maps.

The group was granted an extension by City Manager Roger Crum, said John Hughes, ASG’s city council liaison.

The committee will present the maps late because of difficulty securing the technology required to make the maps, said Hughes, a former Daily Forum editor and current student board member of Students Publishing Co., which publishes The Daily.

At at July meeting, aldermen told residents they would have access to Geographic Information Systems Division — a program that assisted aldermen in creating their map proposals, Lee said. But Hughes said the city did not follow through on that offer.

“We were told that the staff was not willing to help us come up with our own map proposal,” Hughes said. “They would only meet with aldermen to do it.”

With the assistance of NU’s Academic Technologies, the group gained access to the necessary computer software, Hughes said, although the NU employees were not involved in deciding the ward lines.

Kent said the council had received “about six” maps from citizens and alderman by Tuesday. They will decide Oct. 7 when to approve a map.

Still Hughes said it’s “unlikely” aldermen will accept one of the maps without revamping. But an ASG-sponsored map will have more legitimacy if students take an active role in supporting the proposals, he said.

Hughes and Lee have even crafted an ASG bill asking students to get involved.

“It’s going to be really important for students to … show the council that they’re engaged in the process and that the ward boundaries in Evanston are important to students,” he said.