By Robert Haugh

Tonight at 6 pm, Santa Clara City Clerk Hosam Haggag will conduct a random draw to pick the Independent Redistricting Commission.

It may not have the drama of a lottery, but you can watch it live. Here’s how:

Participate by Zoom

Zoom link: https://santaclaraca.zoom.us/j/99706759306

Meeting ID: 997-0675-9306

Or by phone: 1(669) 900-6833

The Commission will hold public meetings and recommend a new City Council District election map using the 2020 U.S. Census data.

Six commissioners will be selected by the random draw to represent each of the six council districts. After that process, one at-large Commissioner and one alternate will be selected from the remaining pool of qualified applicants. 

Here’s how the process will work, according to the City agenda:

• The first random draw by Council District will assign draw numbers to each qualified applicant residing in that Council District. 
• The second random draw by Council District will occur from the pools of qualified applicants from each City Council District to select the Commissioner representing that Council District. 
• After the selection of six Commissioners to represent Council Districts is conducted, a random draw will select the seventh at-large/citywide Commissioner from the remaining qualified applicants not previously selected to represent their Council District on the Commission. 
• The last random draw will select the alternate from the remaining qualified applicants.

For the applicants, there were a lot of qualifying and disqualifying factors. 

There will be 32 applicants in the selection pool. Good luck to all of them.