Just a bit of background information first.

Small wonder Wisconsin Republican lawmakers and their law firm tried so hard to withhold documents in their secret, GOP only, rammed through gerrymandering in Wisconsin in 2011. They were so determined that NO information on how they redistricted that they defied court orders from a 3 judge panel that later issued a record fine of $17,500 against Republican lawmakers and their Republican law firm Michael Best & Friedrich.

After Republicans finally coughed up the documents the court demanded, the case was, surprisingly, decided in favor of the Republicans who were allowed to keep their evil deeds with the exception of 1 district line where they tried to divide Hispanic voters between 2 legislative districts to dilute their voting impact.

After that ruling, however, the case remained open as the plaintiffs insisted that all of the documents had not been released. And since the courts decision, 55 additional redistricting documents have been "found" leading the plaintiffs to ask the court for access to the computers that Republicans and their law firm used for redistricting.

Of course, Republican leaders fought that order even saying they couldn't "find" the computers. They continued to insist that ALL documents had been released, however, the court persisted and issued a strongly worded order that the computers to be provided to the plaintiffs for their review.

That brings us to todays breaking news:



Documents were deleted from state redistricting computers last year even after a lawyer for the Legislature told lawmakers' aides to preserve all records on the computers, according to documents filed Wednesday in federal court. Nine hard drives were recently given to groups suing the state because of questions about whether legislators and their attorneys had turned over all the documents they had been ordered to provide. One of the nine hard drives was unreadable and the outside of it was dented and scratched, which suggested its metal housing had been removed, according to affidavits in the case. In addition, some of the hard drives had a program installed on them to remove electronic data and hide that files had been deleted, according to the filing. So far, however, a computer expert has not been able to determine if the program was actually used.

OMG! This is a BFD.

The BIG question is whether or not this will be enough to reopen the case against the new district maps that enabled Republicans to win vast majorities in the State Legisature and Congressional delegation despite 200,000 more votes for Democrats in those elections.