Saturday, October 21, 2023

Cheating to win elections: Wisconsin GOP defends the use of cracking and packing in drawing legislative districts (Green Bay and De Pere edition)

 
Isolating Green Bay with a specially made GOP gerrymander Exact-O knife, part 1.  We've already seen this strategy with Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Kenosha, Eau Claire, Wausau.  See a pattern?

The useless John Macco (R-Cracked De Pere) has represented the district since January 2015.  In November 2022, he defeated his Democratic challenger by 16 percentage points.

Headline:  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 8/11/2023
Map:  Wisconsin State Legislature  (boxes added)

Somehow, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Tyler Katzenberger can write an article about legislative district without mentioning 'gerrymandering', 'packing', and 'cracking'.  

It's called journalistic malpractice.

The UW Applied Population Lab defines 'cracking' as 
drawing districts in such a way as to divide a concentration of specific types of voters across several districts such that they are a minority in each one, with practically no hope of achieving representation in any of the districts. This practice also helps make districts less competitive.
Th UW Applied Population Lab defines 'packing' as 
the practice of drawing particular districts in such a way as to ensure that another party's candidate wins that seat by a tremendous margin. Although the opposing party is all but guaranteed the seat, packing makes surrounding districts less competitive, and thus tips the balance of power in the legislative body overall toward the ruling party.

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Meet the leaders of the packing and cracking brigade!


Wouldn't you rather have this diverse group in the majority?  They support fair maps.
 

Related reading:

PBS Wisconsin, 8/4/2023
The issue is that, for 12 years, the people of Wisconsin have been living under this extreme partisan gerrymander, and every day that the gerrymander continues to distort politics and policy in the state of Wisconsin is an affront to our Constitution, an affront to our democracy, and a violation of the rights of the people of Wisconsin. So we want to get this gerrymander taken down and fixed so that we can have fair maps and a workable democracy after the 2024 election. If we want that to happen, we need the court to move quickly and we need to ask it quickly.

Other posts in the series:

See also:  Wisconsin Gerrymandering Spotlight, round 2

See also:  Spotlight on Wisconsin gerrymandering


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