Hawaii island could gain both a new Senate seat and an additional House seat based on new data the state Reapportionment Commission is seeking to get a more accurate count for allocating representation in the state Legislature.

But the data will not be collected and processed in time to have new political boundary maps drawn up by Feb. 1, the day when candidates are supposed to be able to file to run for state office.

"We’re not hurting anybody intentionally," said Commissioner Terry Thomason. "We’re doing our best to do what the Supreme Court told us to do."

Members of the commission met Friday, just hours after the high court denied the commission’s motion for reconsideration of a Jan. 4 ruling that tossed out the reapportionment and redistricting plans approved last year.

Reapportionment, allocating the state’s 25 Senate and 51 House seats among islands, and redistricting, drawing the boundaries of the districts, is constitutionally required every 10 years to reflect shifts in the state’s population.

The Supreme Court ruled the commission included too many nonpermanent residents — military members and their dependents along with out-of-state students — in the base population used for drawing up its maps.

Hawaii island plaintiffs, led by state Sen. Malama Solomon and members of the Hawaii County Committee of the state Democratic Party, argued that counting the nonresidents unfairly maintained a greater base on Oahu and negated population growth on Hawaii island that should result in at least an additional Senate seat. Oahu would lose a seat.

As it moves forward, Commission Chairwoman Victoria Marks said the committee wanted to be "deliberate" and try to obtain the most accurate information possible for determining the number of nonresidents to extract from the Oahu base.

"There’s a lot at stake here," she said. "We know that a Senate seat will shift to the Big Island. Depending on how accurate a count we get, a House seat may also shift from Oahu to the Big Island.

"The numbers are going to be very close, and that’s why we need to be very accurate."

The commission identified as many as 78,000 nonresidents — those who live in Hawaii but claim legal residence elsewhere — who could have been excluded from the base, but it eliminated only 16,000 based on the ability to accurately determine both residency status and where they lived.

Raw data from the military and Hawaii’s universities indicated that as many as 120,000 nonresident military members, dependents and students were present in Hawaii at the time of the 2010 Census and could be excluded.

The 16,000 exclusion underestimates the nonpermanent resident population, while the raw data overestimates it, said Royce Jones of ESRI, the city’s mapping software consultant.

"The best estimate lies somewhere in between," Jones said.

An exclusion closer to 78,000 would result in only a Senate seat shifting islands. An exclusion closer to 120,000 would likely shift a House seat, too.

David Rosenbrock, project manager for the state reapportionment project, said since the Supreme Court ruling, the commission has gone back to the military and the universities to ask for refined data that would enable them to get a more accurate picture of the nonpermanent resident population.

"We’ve been able to get a lot better data," he said.

He already has received additional data from the University of Hawaii system and said he expects the requested information from the military by Thursday. Once received, it would take about a week to have the information entered into the software. The commission has scheduled its next meeting for Jan. 30.

Meanwhile, the Office of Elections has said it cannot begin processing candidates’ applications for state offices until a final plan is submitted and approved. Officials said the candidate filing period will be truncated if started after the plan is complete and ended as scheduled July 12.