Category: Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering update 4/10/19

Supreme Court hearing on gerrymandering is today

Now we will see how partisan they are. Most gerrymandering has been done to benefit Republicans. Nobody should do it and it should be banned.

Critical week for gerrymandering

Two gerrymandering cases go before the Supreme Court. They are North Carolina (Republican) and Maryland (rare Democratic gerrymandering). The court has been reluctant to get involved in political gerrymandering cases. If they don’t this time, I am counting on Democrats in the congress. They included it in H.R. 1 which passed the House. Of course, the Senate won’t even discuss it since Republicans are the main beneficiaries and thus are not interested in fair elections. Sad!

Concentrate on gerrymandering and voter suppression

The Democrats in the House passed HR 1, a huge voting overhaul that has no chance at all in the Senate.

I think it would be better if they chopped it up into pieces. It would be easier to explain to the public if they concentrated on one item at a time.

I would start with gerrymandering. It is easy to show examples like Wisconsin and North Carolina. (Yes, Democrats did it in Maryland but this is almost entirely a Republican problem.) The public will understand and approve of the idea of fairness. Democrats also need to emphasize that when districts are redrawn like in Pennsylvania, it’s to promote fairness, not Democrats.

Since the Republicans won’t do anything, it should be easy to tag them as being opposed to fair elections. See the tweet below for a new study that shows obvious problems.

Same for voter suppression. Everyone should understand that all people who are eligible to vote should be able to vote. Republicans have made extensive suppression efforts in places like Georgia.

Gerrymandering update after the midterms

GOP gerrymandering: Democratic votes not matched by seats gained

 

Impact of gerrymandering in Ohio

This is amazing stuff that shows how powerful gerrymandering is.

From the Cleveland.com article linked to below:

“… in terms of controlling Ohio’s government, the GOP won 73 of the 116 Statehouse races.
But the Republicans scored their wins for 63 percent of the seats while collecting just over 50 percent of the total vote.
This is a lot like what happened in Ohio’s 16 congressional districts, where Republicans won 75 percent of the seats with just 52 percent of the overall vote.”

update 11/24/18

 

How North Carolina gerrymandering cost the Democrats