Video by David Corrigan | Voice of Stephanie Salazar

The Hawaii County Redistricting Commission met on Thursday, and one of the first items on the agenda dealt with the extraction of non-resident military and non-resident students from the online software population base.

The State Reapportionment Commission made the controversial decision to count the non-residents, a choice that will likely take a state senate seat away from Hawaii Island. The move will certainly be challenged by Big Island democrats.

But the County Commission, charged with redrawing council district lines, is choosing NOT to count the nonresident military in their process.

One problem: the state administered software that lets the commissioners and the public create the maps will not have those numbers extract those non-resident numbers. The county commission is working on somehow enabling the extraction.

Commissioner Jeff Melrose also requested that the group have access to historical district boundary maps from 1970 through 2000 for use in planning the new lines.