One of the many crippling blows dealt to the U.S. by the coronavirus pandemic has been the disruption of a process that is difficult even under the best of circumstances.

Reapportionment. It is a complicated set of discussions aimed at finding the best way for the current population to be served in its government. This is the sort of thing filled with numbers and election mapping lines that make eyes cross.

In actual fact, it’s the crux of our American representative democracy, and it really matters. Does anyone care whether their representatives understand their community’s needs because they live in that space, too? Everyone should care, of course.

Reapportionment follows the U.S. Census every 10 years. That’s where the problems started: The 2020 count was slowed at least in part because the pandemic complicated the house-to-house surveying that an accurate Census requires, and the effort fell behind.

Time was already short when Hawaii’s Reapportionment Commission got started. And because of some justifiable community uproar over the initial plans it drew up, causing improvements to be made, there is not a minute to waste if the final deadline — getting the maps to the state Office of Elections by Feb. 27 — is to be met.

What happens in the commission’s meeting set for today will be key. The panel will need to ensure that the final maps are based on numbers as accurate as they can be. The community activists who have helped to push through revisions to the initial draft will be going over things with a fine-toothed comb for flaws that exceed allowed deviations in districts that end up less than perfectly proportional to their populations.

Among the challenges: The panel must reconcile competing estimates on population, arising from different numbers of military personnel who live here but are not permanent Hawaii residents. The Hawaii Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that nonresident military and students should not be counted when determining where district lines should fall.

After work had been based on one count of nonresidents, a revised number of military members who must be extracted from the resident population increased by some 35,000 people. If that new count is accepted — it was presented just Monday at a commission meeting — Oahu could lose one House seat to Hawaii island.

Clearly, the commission should decide on the basis of which extraction count is more reliable, redrawing two islands’ maps as necessary.

Commissioners should be guided by the community concerns that have been raised about district lines that split communities, avoiding that wherever it can. One case, involving House District 51, pieces together disparate communities in Kailua, Waimanalo and Portlock; another fragments Mililani.

The panel risks drawing a legal challenge, despite any efforts. What is crucial is that the maps keep deviation as low as logically possible, but that they be done on time. The elections office must give candidates the right guidance to start campaigns, and the final district boundaries must be set by March 1.

Sandy Ma, executive director of Common Cause Hawaii, has been among the most vocal critics of the panel, citing where members met in executive session that hadn’t been scheduled. She also said many of the problems that arose later could have been averted if there had been greater direct public engagement early on.

Commission Chairman Mark Mugiishi said the panel did seek to involve the public at the start by posting documents on an accessible virtual platform.

Looking back, that was surely not ideal, but now it’s time to look ahead. The way forward is for the commission to make the best of the data at hand, and allow elections — democracy — to progress on pace.