At least 11 appeals to the state legislative redistricting plan have been filed, according to an employee at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

The deadline for filing redistricting appeals was Wednesday at 4:00pm, but more valid appeals could arrive in the mail in the coming days.

Many appeals take aim at the number of redrawn districts that break up towns and counties.  The state Constitution says counties and towns shouldn’t be divided by district lines unless absolutely necessary.

It’s a point Michael Churchill, a lawyer at the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, wants to make. He’s filed an appeal on behalf of 13 people from the southeast. He said so many communities are broken up because map makers drew districts to include the homes of incumbents.

“They were trying to preserve incumbent seats so they would still be residents in the districts without changing boundaries,” said Churchill. “They were trying to make sure that they didn’t change the boundaries so much that many incumbents would lose their seats.”

Sam Stretton is the attorney representing two mayors and a borough council member in who object to how the plan splits both the Chester County towns of Phoenixville and West Chester.

“It’s particularly upsetting in West Chester because the town is very coherent town,” said Stretton. “It’s got its business community, it’s the center of all the surrounding areas, and now they’ve… divided it right in half, and put it in two separate legislative districts, contrary to the language in the constitution.”

Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa said his caucus objects to the many municipality splits as well. The appeal filed by Senate Democrats also focuses on the way a Democratic Senate seat in Allegheny County is being moved to the northeast.

“The overall thing, though, is that the partisan nature that this redistricting plan played out,” said Costa. “When you look at 19 competitive districts across this commonwealth, 14 of them resulted in an improvement to the Republican performing districts in that process.”

Attorneys filing appeals acknowledged they’re facing poor odds for getting the state Supreme Court to reject the redistricting plan. Stretton said he believes the current plan is “dead wrong,” but the history of redistricting appeals doesn’t give him great hope for his own case.

“Do I think I can win?  Well, I would agree with the existing case law: I am rolling up waterfalls.  But I believe we’re right on this and we intend to fight it.”