MILWAUKEE — The election process can sometimes seem confusing.
Where you vote, who represents you, and what district you're in can change depending on how the map is drawn.
“In principle, it's nice if those boundaries follow city boundaries or county boundaries or things like that. But in order to get one person one vote, equal size districts, you often have to split up counties or cities,” said Charles Franklin, Director, Marquette Law School Poll.
The two ways that can happen are through redistricting and gerrymandering.
Redistricting is the process of redrawing the lines that define political districts. This is required by state law to happen every 10 years when U.S. Census data is released.
Gerrymandering is different. This happens when the practice of drawing the boundaries of those districts is done in a way that gives one political party or class an unfair advantage.
"You have the choice. Do I split the city in two parts or do I combine this city into one district?" said Franklin.
Charles Franklin is the director of the Marquette Law School poll.
He says both of these methods have been part of our political process for more than 200 years, but with the rise of technology, it went from drawing by hand to a virtual upgrade.
"You might think that's an advantage, but it means that the lines can be drawn in nearly an infinite number of ways. So, it actually opens up more opportunities to strategically draw the lines or gerrymandering them for advantage,” said Franklin.
The Republican-controlled legislation approved district maps in 2011.
Lawsuits eventually made their way to the state Supreme Court, where the justices ruled in favor of the GOP-drawn maps.
Ten years later, newly drawn maps included changes to the south side of Milwaukee.
Voces de la Frontera is one group concerned about how those changes could impact Latino voters.
"If, let's say the Hispanic community was just broken up into different districts and their voting power was deluded, that would be a racial gerrymander to try to dissemble Latinos from voting together as a voting block,” said Richard Saks.
Voces de la Frontera board member Richard Saks says the potential damage can be huge, not just during the election season, but for years to come.
"If we work hard to get our candidates elected, but we still can't even pass the legislation, then it's basically disempowering and disenfranchising all the votes that people worked so hard and harvesting and getting to come out and vote and getting our candidates elected,” said Saks.
Right now, there's a lawsuit on the desk of the state Supreme Court about this issue, with the hope that district maps will be changed ahead of next year's election.
If it happens, a special election will have to be held for state senators based on the new redistricting.
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