CONTACT: DOA Communications, DOACommunicati
| Accompanying report outlines input, considerations and impact of voting maps for Wisconsin |
| Madison, Wis. — Today, the People’s Maps Commission released final voting maps for the consideration of Governor Evers and the Wisconsin Legislature. Developed after a year-long process and significant public input, the maps released today ensure more competitive districts, respect publicly identified communities of interest and address Voting Rights Act concerns for majority/minority districts in the state.
“From the beginning, our effort to create fair and accurate redistricting maps was unique” said PMC Chair Christopher Ford. “As a nonpartisan commission, at each step we have followed best practices for creating new legislative district maps with transparency, consensus, and voter input in mind rather than partisan advantage. We are grateful to the expertise provided by the MGGG Redistricting Lab in this process, and we fully stand behind our work to ensure Wisconsinites have fair voting maps that fully represent where they live, work, and vote.” Over the course of the last year, the nine PMC commissioners, representing Wisconsin’s eight congressional districts, have hosted multiple public hearings as well as public working meetings to ensure Wisconsinites were an integral part of the map drawing process. The core objective of the Commission has been to carry out the overwhelming preference among Wisconsin voters that the redistricting maps be prepared by a nonpartisan committee or commission. The Commission released a first, preliminary round of nine draft maps for public review and consideration on September 30. A second set of seven preliminary maps were subsequently released on October 20, incorporating feedback that the Commission received. The final voting maps released today were drawn according to the Commission’s criteria, including best efforts to not split the communities of interest submitted by residents in each particular region of the state, addressing concerns around competitiveness, and following a non-partisan and transparent process. The PMC Report outlines the full process, guidelines and standards which the Commission followed in developing the maps and provides a statistical breakdown for each map compared with existing maps enacted in 2011. Final maps and additional information is available on the PMC website at Wisconsin.gov/peoplesMaps. |
|
About the People’s Maps Commission Selected by a three judge panel, the People’s Maps Commission is a nine-member nonpartisan redistricting commission charged with drawing fair, impartial maps for the State of Wisconsin. The Commission has thus far engaged input from nearly 2,000 Wisconsinites, representing 68 counties, and 321 municipalities, as well as 18 leading redistricting experts. Wisconsinites across the state submitted recommended maps and identified dozens of communities of interest. More information about the Commission is available at https://wisconsin.gov/ |
