One of the candidates potentially affected by Wednesday’s City Council decision on redistricting is preparing to take her case to the Department of Justice.

Thelma Hinton — who would live in the Suffolk borough, rather than the Nansemond borough, under the plan approved this week — is gathering evidence to send to the Justice Department, which still must approve the plan after it’s completed.

Hinton and another School Board member, Diane Foster, were drawn out of their districts under the plan.

City Councilman Leroy Bennett also was eliminated from his district. If the plan were eventually approved, none of them would have to step down immediately, but would be ineligible to run again when their former borough is up for re-election.

Lue Ward, president of the Suffolk-Nansemond chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he did not know what action the organization would take on the plan.

“It’s in national’s hands now,” he said Thursday, referring to the national organization rather than the local chapter. The organization has filed lawsuits in response to redistricting plans around the country it felt violated the law.

The approved plan creates four majority-minority boroughs and three boroughs where whites are the majority, even though blacks make up only 41 percent of the city’s population. Whites make up 54 percent of the population, while 5 percent classified themselves as another race on the 2010 census.

The boroughs where blacks are the majority under the approved plan are Sleepy Hole, Suffolk, Whaleyville and Cypress. The percentage of black voters ranges from 51.65 percent in Sleepy Hole to about 61 percent in Cypress.

The approved map also switches the names of the Nansemond and Sleepy Hole boroughs. What would have been the Nansemond borough included Sleepy Hole Road, Sleepy Hole Park and Sleepy Hole Golf Course, assistant city attorney William Hutchings said, so it made sense to switch them.

The emotionally-charged public hearing on Wednesday brought 29 speakers from a packed chambers. About 30 to 40 people reportedly waited in a hallway downstairs for a chance to get in, but only a few were granted a seat by the fire marshal as others left.

Many spoke in support of Bennett and Hinton, saying they had represented their borough well and genuinely cared about their constituents.

Other speakers were concerned about perceived dilution of the black vote, possible political interests on the part of City Council members or being drawn into a borough they have nothing in common with.

City Council members said they were pressed for time to make a decision. Had they waited until their next meeting, city staff would have had only five days to draw voting precinct lines and select polling places before they advertised the second public hearing, to be held in November.