Bermuda's new electoral map, or at least the version being recommended by the Boundaries Commission to be unveiled tomorrow, looks likely to contain a minimum of three constituencies each one composed of voters from multiple parishes.

The report envisions an end to oddly configured constituencies like St. George's North.

And electoral fortunes of Bermuda's two main political parties could well turn on the shape of the new constituencies.

It is now generally accepted that the Commission is recommending that Bermuda be divided into 36 constituencies, each one to return one Member of Parliament.

That means each of the new single seat constituencies will contain about 1088 voters - the Commission's mandate was to recommend the boundaries and number of single seat constituencies which should be as equal in size as possible.

According to latest census figures used by the Commission in its deliberations, Bermuda would have 39,153 people eligible to be registered as voters in June of this year.

To generate the new constituencies the Commission also relied upon computer software used by the Works and Engineering department.

And, as explained by a senior technical officer when the technology was demonstrated at a public meeting in January, address points and roads are the primary basis for generating the new equal size constituencies.

The Commission was required by its mandate to take into account Bermuda's geographical features and natural boundaries and ignore racial distribution of electors in drawing up the new boundaries.

And it was allowed to ignore parish boundaries but make sure that constituencies are contiguous - not broken up like St. George's North, half of which takes in St. George's Island and the other half covers Tuckers Town.

Tucker's Town is on the southeast corner of the Main Island and south of St. George's South (St. David's).

While all will be revealed tomorrow there are a number of possible permutations. It is more than likely that the Commission has tried to make the system "user friendly" by keeping the constituencies as much within parish boundaries as possible.

Redrawing the boundaries from the east end to the west end of the Island the parish of St. George's which has 3,563 voters, would end up with three single seat constituencies of 1088 voters with 299 voters left over.

Hamilton Parish, with its 3,276 voters could get three constituencies and 12 voters left over. And Smith's which has slightly more voters would end up with the same number of constituencies but 451 voters left.

But to satisfy the need for contiguity the left over voters from each parish would then be lumped into another constituency with voters from its neighbouring parish.

So expect a St. George's/Hamilton constituency, and possibly just two constituencies in Hamilton and a combined Hamilton/Smith's constituency.

By the same logic a constituency shared by Smith's and Devonshire could well be part of the Commission's recommendation.

And another constituency could be composed of Paget and Warwick voters. It is also possible that some Sandys and Southampton voters would also share a constituency.

And how the report divides up the central parishes of Devonshire (4,761 voters), Pembroke (7,355 voters) and Paget (2,750 voters) could make the most interesting reading for avid followers of local politics.

As currently configured, Devonshire North is a Progressive Labour Party (PLP) stronghold, while the less densely populated Devonshire South has voted for the United Bermuda Party consistently over the years.

Drawing the boundaries from north to south could dilute the support of both parties in the respective (four) constituencies of that parish.

But its unlikely, given some highly densely populated neighbourhoods in that parish, that the constituencies will be drawn with any recognisable geometry.

In Pembroke, likely to end up with six or seven seats, Pembroke East Central and Pembroke East are considered PLP strongholds, while Pembroke West and Pembroke West Central became swing, or marginal constituencies after the 1998 general election.

The United Bermuda Party has traditionally been able to garner the support of voters in the two Paget constituencies.

Parliamentarians on both sides of the political divide are expected to have much to say about the report when it finally comes up for debate in the House of Assembly.

But changing the number of seats would have a major knock-on effect on the boundaries and the odds are that a bipartisan consensus will emerge to support the recommendations which took the Commission a full year to finalise - even with the help of a psephologist (expert in electoral systems) and state of the art technology.