League of Women Voters of Dane County Forum

media release: The League of Women Voters of Dane County (LWVDC) will host a forum on Dec. 10 from 6:30-8 p.m. at the Sequoya Library in Madison.

Election Reflections will examine the state political maps in the wake of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision striking down the old maps. The forum will discuss the impacts of past gerrymandering, whether the new maps had any effect on the Nov. 5 election and what voters need to do to ensure future elections represent the will of the people, including considering alternatives to the Presidential Electoral College.

Charles Franklin, professor of law and public policy and director of the Marquette Law School Poll, will review how our current legislative district maps (the result of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision in Clarke v Wisconsin Elections Commission) modified the previous partisan bias of Wisconsin election results.

Iuscely Flores, co-organizing director of the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition will discuss how the gerrymandering of district maps is harmful to all Wisconsin voters, regardless of party. She will detail what steps are needed now to ensure we have nonpartisan political districts when they are redrawn after the 2030 census. Finally, she will cover how Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices could play a role in deciding the fairness of Wisconsin maps.

Debra Cronmiller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin (LWVWI), will take a more national perspective in supporting the idea that each of our vote matters. She will explain how the Electoral College, used to elect US presidents, puts so much more political attention on swing states like Wisconsin than others. She will describe both the original goal and the inherent bias of the Electoral College as it functions now. She will then talk about how we can make presidential elections more accurately reflect the will of the people.

The event will be moderated by Katrina V Willis, Madison College alumna and LWVDC member.

About the Speakers

Charles Franklin is professor of law and public policy at Marquette Law School, where he has directed the Marquette Law School Poll since 2012. The Marquette Law School poll is ranked third of over 500 pollsters nationally by the website FiveThirtyEight.com, and the only poll with a perfect 10 score for transparency in reporting methodology and results. Franklin was a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for 22 years before leaving to join the Marquette Law School in 2012. He is past president of the Society for Political Methodology and an elected Fellow of the Society. From 2002 to 2020, he was a member of the ABC News election night Decision Desk.

Iuscely Flores is a community mobilizer in the south side of “Minowakiing” aka Milwaukee traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee homeland. For the past 10 years, Flores has provided community mobilizing to different calls to actions, and supports power building through coalition building and strengthening community relationships. She is currently the racial justice and economic advocate for the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. She advocates for racial and economic justice in every capacity, from supporting legislative work to writing articles and reports that reflect the needs of communities of color in Wisconsin. The mission of the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition is to ensure representative government for all, by advocating for and enacting (in law and practice) an independent and nonpartisan redistricting process, building a truly fair and accountable judiciary, and securing the rights of the populace to fair and equal access to voting, by educating and engaging the people of Wisconsin.

Before serving as executive director for LWVWI, Debra Cronmiller worked in state government in the Department of Workforce Development and the Department of Children and Families. Cronmiller will serve as the chair of the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition. She started her career in nonprofit management assisting adults with disabilities enter the workforce and providing shelter and services to people experiencing homelessness. She is currently a director on the Community Shares of Wisconsin Board.

Katrina V Willis has been a Lab Assistant in the Accounting and Business Lab at Madison College since 2017. She is a first-generation college graduate, and has served in various leadership roles at Madison College and in the community, including in student government, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), as well as for over three years on both the Policy and Advocacy Committee and the Workshops and Webinars Committee of the Wisconsin Health Information Management Association (WHIMA). She has moderated, coordinated, and facilitated workshops, webinars, and panel discussions for WHIMA. Willis is preparing to earn the certified coding specialist certification and pursue employment in the healthcare industry.