“Redistricting is the process by which new congressional and state legislative district boundaries are drawn.”

https://ballotpedia.org/Redistricting

Each state, after the nation-wide census that takes place every ten years, is required to review their congressional and state legislative district boundaries and, if necessary, change them so that they have roughly the same number of people in each district.

Determination of districts for representation to the U.S. House of Representatives is addressed in Article I, Section 2, of the Constitution of the United States.

Determination of districts for representation to the Wisconsin state legislature is addressed in

Article IV, Section 3, of the Wisconsin Constitution (unannotated – p. 5).

“Gerrymandering is the practice of drawing electoral district lines to favor one political party, individual, or constituency over another.”

https://ballotpedia.org/Gerrymandering

The gerrymandering of voting districts is intended to predetermine the outcomes of elections in each district, in effect diluting and diminishing the value of each voter’s vote. This outcome is achieved by intentional selection of specific areas to be in specific districts to ensure that the district as a whole will vote for the majority party. At the same time, the number of districts that vote for the minority party is minimized, lessening their chance of sharing power.

Gerrymandering discourages potential candidates from running in districts that have been designed so that the opposite party is highly likely to win by a strong margin.

The following article describes and illustrates the effect of gerrymandering on Wisconsin elections: Article by Sharon Roznik, FDL Reporter. The report on which the article is based is from the Wisconsin Election Commission, which lists each election contest and the candidates in them: Candidates on Ballot by Election, WI Election Commission.

The gerrymandering of voting districts has also been said to support the perpetuation of systemic racism by diluting voices of minority groups in government, and by affecting federal and state funding for these citizens. The following article presents a perspective on this issue:

Want to dismantle structural racism in the US? Help fight gerrymandering – M. Winter.

The practice of setting voting districts to bestow electoral advantage to a particular political party has been used since the infancy of the United States. Until recent days, the desired boundaries were simply drawn by hand, based on common knowledge, to effect the desired outcome. Today, with modern technology, boundary-setting has become a sophisticated process using super computers, big data, and new computational and mapping tools and techniques. Gerrymandering today is a precise and powerful tool, not only for assuring advantage for one party but also to precisely predict and manipulate the outcome of elections. In the 2018 Supreme Court case concerning gerrymandering, Rucho et al. v. Common Cause et al., Justice Elena Kagan makes this point explicitly in the dissenting document she authored on behalf of herself, Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, And Justice Sotomayor. (See https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf, p. 48 of complete document; p. 9 of dissent sub-document.)

According to the Wisconsin Constitution (Article IV, Section 3 – p. 5), the Legislature has the responsibility to approve the boundaries for voting districts after the national census every ten years. The Constitution is silent regarding how to define the districts, so the Legislature decides how the district boundaries are set and can choose to make the voting districts fair or not. This interpretation is confirmed in an official memo, dated February 4, 2020, to Senator Dave Hansen from Peggy Hurley, Staff Attorney, Wisconsin Legislative Council Legislative Council Memo.sb288.2.4.20.pdf; the Legislature is not precluded by the Wisconsin Constitution from using a different process to define voting districts.

Gerrymandering is possible in Wisconsin because there are no criteria or processes in place to prevent it.

No one knows. Because fair voting district maps would be created based on non-partisan criteria, the outcome of the elections would not be known. If no previous election data were to be used in the creation of the districts, the political outcome would be unknown. However, whatever the outcome is, it would be much more representative of the will of Wisconsin voters because everyone’s votes would count equally. If the majority party still wins after redistricting of an area where they had been previously gerrymandered to win, then the will of the people of that area will be known and clear. If an area switches majority from one party to the other, the will of that electorate will be heard and accounted for.

The Wisconsin Constitution (unannotated, Article IV, Section 3 – p. 5) gives the Wisconsin Legislature the power to redraw state legislative and congressional district maps every ten years, but it is silent on who must create the maps. In the current process, party leaders in the Legislature delegate the creation of the voting district maps to partisan experts (lawyers and legislative aides) of their choosing. Both chambers of the Legislature and the Governor must accept these maps before they are put into effect; if the Legislature and Governor cannot agree, the matter is decided in court. There is no requirement for the maps to be representative in an unbiased way.

Some states have different constitutional requirements for setting electoral voting districts, but in 36 states, as in Wisconsin, the state legislatures are primarily responsible for setting their legislative districts. In ten states, independent commissions draw state legislative district lines; in four states, politician commissions carry out the state legislative redistricting.

Redistricting – Ballotpedia.

Citizens can join grassroots groups, such as their local Fair Maps Teams ( Fair Maps Sign Up Form) and the Western Wisconsin Nonpartisan Voting Districts project ( WWNVD), to influence creation of fair voting districts. In addition, citizens can vote for candidates and ballot measures to support creation of fair voting districts. If their representatives in office do not currently support fair voting maps, voters can contact them, make their own positions known, and urge their support, through letters, phone calls, and emails. They can write letters to the editors of their local papers and use social media to encourage support of fair voting districts.

If enough citizens are vocal enough in their opposition to gerrymandering and their support for fair districting, the Legislature will ultimately take note and take action. The Wisconsin movement to end gerrymandering is growing in strength quickly and a majority of counties and some municipalities have already passed resolutions or referenda in favor of independent, nonpartisan redistricting ( County Support for Fair Voting Maps). Citizens can maintain pressure on their legislators to change the redistricting system to reflect the will of the populace.

The legislature, according to the Wisconsin Constitution  (unannotated, Article IV, Section 3 – p. 5), has responsibility for passing electoral district maps into law, but it is not required to create the maps. The Constitution is silent regarding how to define the districts. This interpretation is confirmed in an official memo, dated February 4, 2020, to Senator Dave Hansen from Peggy Hurley, Staff Attorney, Wisconsin Legislative Council Legislative Council Memo.sb288.2.4.20.pdf.

Citizens can educate themselves about issues related to gerrymandering by accessing sites with relevant information and take action with other concerned citizens.

WWNVD has much information about gerrymandering and many resources to help citizens work for fair districting. WWNVD has asked candidates and elected officials to sign commitments to support the establishment of fair voting maps so voters will know where they stand.

Western Wisconsin for Nonpartisan Voting Districts

Wisconsin Democracy Campaign also has information about fair voting districts and tools to help end gerrymandering.

Creating nonpartisan voting districts in Wisconsin requires a new process for redistricting not based on political factors. Instead, districts would be set based on criteria such as societal and cultural factors, taking into account geographical, municipal, and community boundaries. Voting districts would be required to be as contiguous and compact as possible. Criteria would ignore past election results, so partisanship would not purposely play a role in establishing the new voting districts. In the state of Iowa, such a method has been successfully used for 40 years.

Legislative Guide to Redistricting in Iowa

Participation in Governor Evers The People’s Maps Commission is another way to help end gerrymandering. Local events will be held through the first half of next year. See FAQ 16 for additional information.

As in Wisconsin, the constitution of Iowa requires that the Legislature vote the maps of the voting districts into law. In Iowa, however, since 1980, Iowa legislation has required that a nonpartisan commission develop and propose the district maps, and partisan leaders of the legislature are not involved in creating the districts. The districts are drawn according to specific and rigorous non-partisan criteria. These criteria include the requirement to keep cities, towns, and counties intact as districts to the extent possible. The nonpartisan criteria preclude the use of past election results as input for the definition of new districts. They further do not consider the residency of incumbent legislators when drawing the new districts. Voters, not incumbent legislators, take precedence in the Iowa procedure.

Legislative Guide to Redistricting in Iowa

The process for drawing the proposed district maps could be based on the Iowa model Legislative Guide to Redistricting in Iowa, in which a nonpartisan body establishes non-political criteria for setting boundaries and proposes voting maps for legislative approval. If the Legislature does not approve the maps, the panel would reconvene, amend the maps, and again submit them to the Legislature for approval. If the Legislature again does not approve the maps, a third amendment of the maps is proposed; this version must be denied by two thirds of the Legislature or it becomes law.

According to the Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 2, voting districts are to be set every ten years after completion of the U.S. census and based on its results. They are not required to be changed, but the new census information can be used to redefine voting districts. Depending on the changes in population, the number of districts may stay the same, or go up or down, which means the populations of the districts may change and the boundaries may need to be redrawn.

You can find out who your legislative representatives are on the website of the Wisconsin State Legislature or United States Government Elected Officials website.

The Fair Maps WI organization asks candidates and officials to sign pledges that they will support the principles of fair voting districts. The Fair Maps WI website shows which candidates and officials by county and position have signed the pledge:   WI Legislators for Fair Maps.

In 2019, a non-partisan group of more than 50 Wisconsin legislators co-sponsored Assembly Bill 303 to reform the process for district-setting.

Whenever Wisconsin voters are given an opportunity, they support fair voting districting. The website Wisconsin Democracy Campaign shows that a majority of the counties and some municipalities in Wisconsin have already voted to support use of nonpartisan voting districts. A list of counties supporting fair voting districts is also available on the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign website.

According to polls run by Marquette Law School, seventy-two percent of voters in 2019 and 70% in 2020 said they prefer that a nonpartisan commission carry out the redistricting of legislative and congressional districts.   Marquette Law School Poll

Governor Evers has established by executive order a People’s Maps Commission, which is a nonpartisan committee charged with drawing fair, impartial maps following the 2020 census. The Commission is made up of people from across the state, and does not include elected officials, lobbyists, or political party officials.

To follow the activities of the People’s Maps Commission or to participate in its events, go to their website People’s Maps Commission.

The Commission is holding public hearings throughout Wisconsin from October 2020 to April 2021. They will use the input obtained in the hearings to create maps for the Legislature’s vote in 2021. Hearing dates and links to join as an observer can be found under the About People’s Maps section of their website. To provide written comments to the hearings, complete the form on their website People’s Maps – Written Comment Form.

Fact: Twenty states have some type of non-partisan redistricting process, including Colorado, Michigan, Missouri and Utah.

Fact: It’s been confirmed over and over again that printing a referendum on ballots costs virtually nothing since the ballots are already being printed. However, the costs of gerrymandering are immensely high. Since the 2011 gerrymandered maps were drawn, legal fees defending the gerrymandered maps added up to over $4 million, all funded by Wisconsin taxpayers.

Fact: While legislators do need to vote on the district maps, the Constitution does NOT say anything about the legislature needing to draw them. In 2011, the legislators in Wisconsin hired a computer programmer from Oklahoma to draw the gerrymandered district maps based on past voting data. If a computer programmer can legally draw the maps, a non-partisan commission can legally draw the maps.

Fact: While states have often had gerrymandered district maps, we have never seen the degree of gerrymandering across the country that we saw after 2011. With the advancements of data analytics and computer programming, experts are able to gerrymander in much more extreme ways. 

Fact: Gerrymandering is not as much of an issue when the legislature is balanced, but when one party gains control of the Senate, Assembly, and the Governor’s office, they are able to use that majority to enact extreme gerrymandering. This has not happened during a redistricting year in recent history, so in 2011 when Republicans held the majority in all three offices, they were able to enact more extreme gerrymandering.

Fact: Wisconsin’s election outcomes from 2011-2020 were essentially decided in 2011 when the new maps were drawn. They are so gerrymandered that it’s essentially impossible for the minority party to ever beat a majority party incumbent.

Fact: If people live in a gerrymandered district, their legislator will not have to be accountable to their constituents because it’s essentially impossible for them to be voted out. Majority party legislators can do virtually anything or nothing and still be reelected, so they do not need to listen to their constituents in order to keep their job.