The finalised state election boundaries released on Thursday will only slightly rebalance the Ballarat district, with urban districts becoming more urban and rural districts becoming more rural.
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The three electorates in the region have been reshaped, with one - Buninyong - to be renamed Eureka for the November 2022 state election.
Wendouree, which takes in most of the city of Ballarat, and Ripon, which extends far to the west, have also been reshuffled as populations shift.
ABC election expert Antony Green concurred with the Electoral Boundary Commission, the independent statutory agency responsible for drawing up the new map - it is hard to split Ballarat neatly in two.
"They've had a problem for years with Ballarat - it's not like Bendigo, you can split Bendigo in half and combine rural areas around it, but you can't do that with Ballarat without completely redrawing things like Ripon," he told The Courier.
"If you're keeping Ripon as an entirely rural electorate, what they've done is stuck two-thirds or three-quarters of Ballarat city in one electorate."
Based off the 2018 election results - with the caveat that pre-polling may have skewed the numbers - Mr Green estimates the margins for each electorate will change only slightly, and mostly fit between the previous results and the estimates for June's initial draft proposals.
"Buninyong at the last election had a margin of 12.2, the draft reduced it to 7.3, and for this final one, for Eureka, the estimated margin is 9.4, so they've taken a whole bunch of stuff that was coming into the electorate from Polwarth back out, and they've put more of Ballarat into Eureka, it's substantially reduced the estimate," he said.
"Wendouree went from 10.3 to 13.4, on this new boundary, it's 11.2 - it's split the difference, it's slightly strengthened Labor's position but not as strongly as the draft boundaries.
"Ripon, an absolute line ball at the last election, on the draft boundaries went to 2.7, my estimate on the redrawn, final version is 2.8, it's not much difference, roughly the same, but that's just using the results from last time.
"I'm sure the sitting member would be happier with what she's got (in the final draft)."
Based on his analysis, Mr Green said the end result "made a bit more sense" than the previous and draft boundaries.
"Napoleons is semi-rural, and that's gone into Ripon, which is an overwhelmingly rural electorate - not knowing the area, that looks a better fit," he said.
"Oddly enough it doesn't change the margin much, it still comes out as a Labor seat, because all of those towns that have moved out of Buninyong were Labor voting towns and communities, but a Liberal MP probably has a better chance of turning those voters around than voters in Wendouree and Alfredton in urban areas.
EXPLORE THE NEW BOUNDARIES HERE
"It's now back to being a seat of lots of small to medium communities, it's a slightly more consistent electorate."
Bacchus Marsh will be part of the Eureka electorate, which Mr Green said would help boost its population as a primarily rural seat.
"Wendouree is now a whole, consistent electorate, Rpon is now consistently rural, but as for Eureka, the federal electorates regularly have Bacchus Marsh in Ballarat, there's a connection on the freeway, so it's made sense in the past," he said.
"They've taken bm out of an urban electorate and put it in a rural electorate, which is how they maintain population in rural districts."
An aspect to watch will be how dramatic the anecdotal population shifts from the pandemic have been, he added.
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"This redistribution is that it all got under way before COVID hit, and the population estimates will be interesting to see how they work out over time," he said.
Buninyong, currently held by Michaela Settle, will become Eureka and will cover less of Ballarat - it currently includes Sebastopol and Mount Pleasant, which will become part of the Wendouree electorate.
The new boundary follows the Yarrowee Creek from Brown Hill, and also takes in more of Ballarat East - put succinctly, pretty much everything south and east of Humffray Street will be in the Eureka electorate.
The Wendouree electorate, currently held by Juliana Addison, will take in Bonshaw to the south and an area further south-west towards Smythes Creek.
The new southern border will be Lacys Road.
To the north, the Ripon electorate, currently held by Louise Staley, will also expand, taking the Invermay and Mount Rowan area from Wendouree and again following the Yarrowee for its eastern border with Eureka.
Outside of the city, Ripon will also cover Smythesdale, taking the region from Linton to Napoleons from Eureka.
However, Eureka will significantly expand almost to Cressy, taking in Teesdale and Inverleigh to the south-west.
The sitting MPs for each electorate now have a year to get to know their new potential constituents.
Buninyong MP Michaela Settle said in a statement she welcomed the renaming of the electorate "in recognition of one of the most important periods in Victoria's history".
"Over the last three years I have become a Sebas girl and I'm proud that I was able to put the Spotlight on Sebastopol through a $5 million investment," she said.
"It's been an absolute joy to fund some really important projects and I have made some close friendships. I suspect you can't take Sebas out of the girl, so I'm sure I will keep many friends.
"Haddon, Smythesdale, Scarsdale and Linton will go to Ripon and I will miss those lovely communities. I'll be sure to visit to watch works on the $9 million to rebuild Woady Yalloak's four campuses."
Ripon MP Louise Staley said she was keen to begin meetings with councils and community groups in the expanded electorate.
"My view is I take John Howard's old adage to heart - you can't fatten a pig on market day, so you just have to keep doing the work," she said.
"People want to see you're there with them and working for them for the full four years of the term - they want to know you've been out there in their markets, in their groups, I volunteer at the football, they want to know you do that in the off years, which is fair enough - if I was a voter that's what I'd want too."
Wendouree MP Juliana Addison said the redistribution was "an opportunity to meet new people".
"I was really disappointed when the draft came out that the Wendouree West Recreation Reserve was no longer going to be a part of Wendouree electorate, because that's a community I've got to spend a lot of time with, like the Forest Rangers Soccer Club and the Wendouree Neighbourhood Centre, it's an important project for me," she said.
"You do, as a local member, get to know people and groups while you're there.
"Whether a boundary moves a couple of kilometres either way, I'm really confident that as a local member I'll do my very best to connect with my new groups."
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