Fair Maps Next Steps

By: Irene Bugge

The fair maps referendum on the April 6 ballot in Polk County passed. What happens next?

I posed this question to Kathleen Hobert. A fair maps advocate and farmer in Amery, she helped lead the nonpartisan redistricting referendum efforts in Polk County. 

Hobert smiled and answered, “First we celebrate the referendum passing. Our team worked really hard.”

Volunteers put up 150 “End Gerrymandering” yard signs, mailed 2,000 vote-yes-for-the-nonpartisan-redistricting-referendum postcards and left phone messages or spoke directly with 700 voters. The local League of Women Voters chapter held five fair maps sign rallies. News stories and ads stimulated a robust discussion of the issue on the editorial pages of local papers.

“We saw lots of community engagement,” says Hobert.

And it paid off.

A solid majority — 61% of voters in Polk County — voted yes to the question: “Should the Wisconsin legislature create a nonpartisan procedure for the preparation of legislative and congressional plans and maps?”

How will voting district maps be redrawn in 2021?

Ten years ago, the voting district maps were drawn behind closed doors by a political scientist from Oklahoma. The maps were kept secret. The people of Wisconsin were not involved in the process. Even elected officials from the majority party were only allowed to see how their own district was drawn before voting to approve the maps.

Advances in data analytics enabled the maps to be so heavily gerrymandered that they diluted the votes and voices of over half of Wisconsin’s citizens. A Federal court deemed them unconstitutional, and the expensive court battles over the rigged maps wasted $4 million of taxpayer money.