A petition to adjust the boundaries of Penn Township’s five voting wards will be filed in Westmoreland County court.

If OK’d by a judge, the new boundaries would take effect Jan. 1, according to the petition.

The changes would affect about 500 residents who would have a new voting ward, polling place and township commissioner who represents them. Commissioners this year approved an updated ward map to correspond with data from the 2020 census.

The map was supposed to go into effect this year, solicitor Michael Korns said, but the state needed more time to finalize the plan. Because the pandemic slowed the release of census data, the ward reapportionment process was delayed, Korns said. Commissioners voted last month to push the effective date to the start of the new year.

The county elections board approved filing the petition Monday.

Greg McCloskey, director of the elections bureau, said the county worked through the proposal with township officials.

Penn Township is home to about 20,000 residents. In updating the ordinance, township officials previously said they tried to make sure there’s close to even numbers of residents in each ward as they contend with population growth.

Estimates for 2022 showed the township gained about 500 people since 2010, according to census data.

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