Email sent out to all County Clerks and WISE-LR Administrators on February 13, 2012
Dear County Clerk and/or WISE-LR Administrator,
We would first like to thank you for your participation in the local redistricting process in Wisconsin. Through your efforts, over 1,600 county supervisory districts and 6,500 municipal wards were created during this process. Over 1,500 local redistricting plans were created in the WISE-LR application alone.
Your participation in this project resulted in the collection of the first Wisconsin statewide supervisory district layer and a new 2011 Wisconsin municipal ward layer. The data collected as part of this project can be viewed using the following links.
2011 Wisconsin Supervisory Layer: http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=4a818e54a13d4b929167db8bbd748c8b
2011 Wisconsin Ward Layer: http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=d738b7035eac441487d94163b6d12d37
The Legislature provided the data collected during this process to the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) for insertion into the Statewide Voter Registration System (SVRS).
We would also like to take this opportunity to notify the following counties that some municipal wards submitted to the Wisconsin Legislature will need to be divided because they are bisected by an Act 43 Assembly District or an Act 44 Congressional District line. Maps for each bisected ward can be viewed by clicking on the name of the county listed below. Wisconsin Act 39 requires these wards be altered to accommodate the Act 43 Assembly and the Act 44 congressional lines. If your county is on the list, we ask that you please make these alterations as soon as possible.
1. Chippewa
2. Dane
3. Dodge
4. Eau Claire
5. Fond du Lac
6. Iowa
7. Kenosha
8. Marathon
9. Milwaukee
10. Outagamie
11. Polk
12. Racine
13. Richland
14. Rock
15. Sheboygan
16. Walworth
17. Waukesha
18. Winnebago
The WISE-LR application is available for the counties listed above to perform the necessary division of wards. The Legislative Technology Services Bureau’s (LTSB) GIS team members will also be available to assist you in this process.
The deadline to finish the process of ward division is April 10th, 2012 (pursuant to 2011 Wisconsin Act 75, Section 4).
More guidance regarding Act 39 can be found here: http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lrb/pubs/Lb/11Lb1.pdf.
Please visit the WISE-LR “FAQ’s” page (Question 3), for technical guidance on altering bisected wards in the WISE-LR application. http://legis.wisconsin.gov/ltsb/wiselr/faqs.htm
Contact Information
Michael Keane – Legislative Reference Bureau – Michael.Keane@legis.wi.gov – 608-266-0346
Tony J. Van Der Wielen – Legislative Technology Services Bureau – gis@legis.wi.gov, tony.vanderwielen@legis.wi.gov – 608-266-6640 Ext. 1.
Thank you,
Tony J. Van Der Wielen
LRB Legislative Brief relating to Local Redistricting Re-Adjustments: http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lrb/pubs/Lb/11Lb1.pdf
Map of Approved Supervisory Plans (Updated on 8/9/11)
Map of Approved Wards (Updated on 9/9/11)
Report of Cities, Towns and Villages Required to Create Wards (as of 9/9/11)
The History of WISE-LR
Back in 2000, WISE-LR allowed counties and municipalities to create new ward, supervisory, and aldermanic plans as part of their redistricting effort, replacing the WISLR program used in the 1990 redistricting project.
The WISE-LR application proved to be very successful for the redistricting project.
The Wisconsin Legislature is appreciative of the many counties and municipalities who participated in the redistricting project and used the WISE-LR application. Through the use of the WISE-LR application, the legislature was able to collect the current ward boundaries for almost every county, as well as most of the current supervisory and aldermanic districts. This data proved invaluable to the success of the 2001 Legislative Redistricting Project.
What is WISE-LR?
WISE for Local Redistricting was created by the Wisconsin Legislative Technology Services Bureau, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Applied Population Laboratory and the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau.
WISE-LR is a simple to use online local redistricting tool that can be utilized to quickly and easily create county supervisory, aldermanic and municipal ward boundaries. The application will use U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 tabulation blocks merged with Census 2010 population totals. WISE-LR was built specifically to help counties meet a statutory requirement to submit municipal ward information to the Legislature.
Help Us Build WISE-LR
The WISE-LR Pilot program began in April of 2010 and concluded in September of 2010. WISE-LR gave counties an opportunity to use the online application before its final release on April 1, 2011.
This program gave counties the opportunity to:
· Test features of the new software.
· Assess the support and training materials that will be provided.
· Make enhancement suggestions.
As an added benefit for participation in the WISE-LR Pilot program, counties had the opportunity to have assignments made in the pilot program made available in the final release of the software.