Milwaukee Adding 37 New Wards

A number of Milwaukee voters will again need to relearn what voting ward they live in. The city is poised to add 37 new wards as a result of a recent court ruling.

The Common Council completed a controversial redistricting process for its own districts in January, while the state legislative districts were still subject to a court battle.

For a period it seemed like maps drawn by Governor Tony Evers would prevail, and the council was poised to call a special meeting to adjust Milwaukee’s boundaries to match. But in March, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Wisconsin Supreme Court‘s pro-Evers decision, and, in April the state Supreme Court ultimately picked the Republican-controlled Legislature’s proposal.

That flip-flop sent the city’s Batman-and-Robin Legislative Reference Bureau team of Jeff Osterman and Luke Knapp back to the drawing board to reconfigure the city’s 317 wards. A revised proposal, recommended for adoption by the Judiciary & Legislation Committee Monday, would add 37 wards to the city.

“[They] need to be created to avoid conflict with the new state assembly lines,” said Osterman. When a reconfigured assembly district divided a city ward, the underlying ward was split in two to comply with state law.

“They are pretty much all over the city,” said Osterman. “It looks like almost every district has a couple new wards in it.”

The good news for voters is that polling locations won’t change. Wherever one voted in April will be where one can vote in the fall elections. But the Milwaukee Election Commission will need to create new signs and other materials to reflect the additional ward numbers.

Some of the new wards don’t even have voters in them. Two of them, 353 and 354, are slivers of land along the Milwaukee River that were created to reflect the fact that one set of maps placed the border on a different side of the river than the other.

“Are we done?” asked committee chair Alderman Ashanti Hamilton.

“You would like to think so,” said Osterman. He said he was unaware of any pending lawsuits.

The full council is scheduled to meet on May 10.

The council initially adopted the wards, which under state law must hold between 1,000 and 4,000 residents, in November as part of a “warp-speed process” resulting from delays from the county, state and federal government. It adopted a district map later in November, but pushback from Voces de la Frontera and other Latino stakeholders led then-Mayor Tom Barrett to veto the map, only for the City Attorney to advise the council that it would violate the Voting Rights Act by amending the map solely for racial reasons.

There are other challenges looming for the election commission and small pockets of voters. Special elections to replace council members before the regularly-scheduled 2024 election will take place under a mix of old and new boundaries. An election to fill Cavalier Johnson‘s council seat has already been called, and another to replace Nik Kovac is expected to be called.

Under state law, the elections will take place according to the council’s prior district boundaries that the members were elected under, not the newly-adopted map. Voters may live in new wards that are eligible to vote in the race, but on blocks within the ward that are outside the old boundaries, rendering them ineligible. The commission will need to maintain block-by-block lists at polling places to verify who is eligible.

Maps and Statistics

• Amended 2022 Ward Map
• Adopted District Map – Detailed
• Adopted District Map – 11×17
• Adopted District Map Demographics
• Adopted 2021 City Ward Map
• 2012 Ward Map
• 2012 Common Council Districts
• 2000 to 2010 Population Change by Aldermanic District
• 2010 to 2020 Population Change by Aldermanic District
• 2020 Population Change by Wards
• 2020 Aldermanic District Demographics