After a federal court ruled to increase representation of Latino voters in Milwaukee’s south side through redistricting last March, an ongoing investigation reveals aids to Republican lawmakers allegedly deleted thousands of redistricting files from state computers.
According to court filings last week from attorneys for Voces de la Frontera, a Wisconsin-based immigrants rights group, the plaintiffs will have until May 10 to file a report of unreported documents from the state.
Various state legislators have yet to present subpoenaed materials ordered by the court in the redistricting decision.
An unnamed source knowledgeable of the redistricting case said all but one or two Republican legislators in the state signed a secret agreement to remain silent about the wrongful withholding of documents under “suspicious timing.”
“The maps that are drawn, the reapportionment that is required every 10 years is basically the architecture through which our right to vote and participate in the democratic government is determined,” the source said. “That process was contaminated by secrecy.”
The source added Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, and his brother and former Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, as well as attorneys from Michael Best and Friedrich, the law firm representing the state, participated in the wrongful withholding of subpoenaed documents.
The filing from lawyers Douglas Poland and Peter Earle said the court has authorized them to pursue a forensics analysis of the computers legislators used for the redistricting maps.
The attorneys gave Mark Lanterman of Computer Forensic Services Inc. nearly $100,000 to uncover and restore the deleted files from three state computers. Poland and Earle said Lanterman is approximately 40 percent finished with his work.
Lanterman said in his third court declaration his services are especially costly because the files in question were not only deleted, but wiped – or permanently destroyed – in an attempt to remove the redrawn map data from existence forever.
Lanterman uncovered “hundreds of thousands” of deleted redistricting files by a user logged into the account of Tad Ottman, an aide to Scott Fitzgerald, July 25, 2012.
This deletion occurred just after Republicans lost the majority in the Senate and the new Senate leader Mark Miller requested the filing, according to the court filing.
Initially, the case filled in 2011 by Voces de la Frontera along with Ramiro Vara, Olga Wara, Jose Perez and Erica Ramirez ruled in favor of the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board redrawing the redistricting map.
The ruling affirmed Voces de la Frontera’s challenge that the redistricting map violated civil rights of Latino voters under the Voter Rights Act because it denied them the voting majority in the 8th assembly district.
Voces de la Frontera Executive Director Christine Neumann-Ortiz said in a March 2012 statement the case emerged from secretive practices by state GOP members.
“This is a vindication, that we were right,” Neumann-Ortiz said. “If the Republican Party had chosen to honor the public process – instead of operating secretly – there would have been the opportunity for a meaningful discussion and debate. Instead, it only serves as a lengthy and costly lesson.”
The unnamed source said these clandestine practices have reoccurred since the ruling. The source added it is important the attorneys get to the bottom of this follow-up investigation and restore public confidence in the electoral system.
Scott Fitzgerald and Tad Ottman did not return calls on their office phones by press time Tuesday.
