The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) just released its newest report, Behind the Lines: Investigating the Efficiency Gap in Redistricting. The report provides insight into the so-called Efficiency Gap, which left-leaning groups rely on to redraw legislative maps in courtrooms in Wisconsin and across America.
What is the Efficiency Gap? The efficiency gap tries to quantify how “efficiently” one party’s votes are spread over their winning districts. It often identifies high numbers of so called “wasted votes” in densely populated urban areas. If a map has a bad efficiency gap, oftentimes Left-leaning groups say that the map is gerrymandered when it reflects voter choices on where to live. Our report further explains this statistical measure and its limitations.
The Quote: WILL Research Director, Will Flanders, stated “The efficiency gap has become a manipulation effort by the Left to allege legislative districts as gerrymandered and overturn them for political gain. The efficiency gap is insufficient and can’t fully consider common factors in legislative races, such as uncontested campaigns and political geography.”