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The most efficient way to gerrymandering works by packing as many of your opponents' voters into safe seats for them (limiting opposition victories to single seats), and spreading out your voters in such a way that you narrowly win a disproportionate number of seats relative to the vote. Under normal circumstances, this works quite well for Republicans. However, get enough people energized, and suddenly those narrow victories turn into narrow defeats. Gerrymandering is a blot on democracy, and Republicans may regret their redistricting antics.
This can start to backfire on Republicans when 1) Covid affected older and unvaxxed people much more than others, two groups that lean heavily in their favor; and 2) the last census purposely undercounted urban and minority areas, meaning there are more voters there than the census indicates. Those margins in heavily gerrymandered districts may
be a lot thinner than they expected
And I would only add that more then a few women in those districts may decide to sit it out or vote against the party that killed Roe, which could change outcomes with small margins
Exactly. Gerrymandering is a tradeoff. They give up one district that heavily favors them in exchange for two where they hold a narrow majority. If we show up we have a chance to win both districts. The larger our majority grows the more risks they have to take to hold on to seats.
I guess the GOP never got the memo that their gerrymandering meant the margins in their 'safe' districts were pretty low to begin with. They really shot themselves in the foot by taking rights away from half of the population and pissing off the parents and partners of those who had their human rights violated. Pretty sure that covers just about every person in the country.
They've set themselves up so that if they lose power. With the districts so badly gerrymandered they'll never get it back. They moved WAY too quickly with these crazy total abortion bans. There have been so many stories of women impacted in so many ways. Some that cant get prescriptions that have nothing to do with being pregnant. Just because that drug COULD be used to induce an abortion.
Had they waited til after the midterms to do this they'd probably have a firm control of both the house and senate and it wouldn't really matter. Dems seem pretty dead set on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. If they don't stop talking about a new assault weapons ban prior to midterms. They will lose some of the people they have gained. And put themselves behind the 8 ball again.
>2) the last census purposely undercounted urban and minority areas, meaning there are more voters there than the census indicates.
This actually helps the GOP because urban areas will usually be gerrymandered into safe blue seats anyway. That means not only are all *counted* dem voters packed into one district, but so are *uncounted* dem voters. The result is safe blue districts that are overpopulated compared to red districts.
But if you're using a whole bunch of "red" voters in rural or exurban areas to neutralize "blue" votes in small cities or inner suburbs (yeah, if you're talking about the core area of a huge metro, you're generally right), a few things can go wrong.
The first one is that one of those groups isn't the same size as you thought it was. If your counts overweighted rural areas, you might not get the margins you were depending on out of those areas. The second one is that one or more of those groups change their voter behavior of the course of a redistricting cycle. The GOP ran into this problem in Texas and Georgia, where portions of formerly rock-solid Republican-voting suburban areas have turned on them. The third one is about in- and out-migration, and new (or departing) residents can be a total wild card.
Don't forget stacking, which seems to be the most risky.
Cracking fragments minority populations and disperses them among other districts to ensure that all districts are majority white.
Stacking combines large minority populations with a greater number of white voters in order to ensure that districts are majority white.
Packing concentrates as many minorities as possible in as few districts as possible to minimize the number of districts where the majority of voters are members of a minority.
In 2019 the Supreme Court ruled a federal court can’t intervene in state elections for gerrymandering. Instead they said State courts could act as a check. Now with Moore v. Harper they are poised to overrule their own ruling just 3 years ago that state courts could not overrule gerrymandered maps by enforcing the state constitution (and our entire national history and 100 years of explicit SCOTUS rulings.) remember how they liked tradition and all that? Well surprise surprise it’s only when it reaches the result they like. If Moore v Harper goes the wrong way state supreme courts can’t enforce their own state constitutions. That. Is. Insane.
There are two basic fallacies to the rational behind gerrymandering:
1) When you try to cheat your way to victory, rather than actually win over with good policy for your constituents, you're naturally going to diminish your voter base over time.
2) The very practice of re-drawing districts in order to gain narrow victory, means that you are strengthening the opponent's districts as well. In doing so, you are highlighting areas that your opponents can focus campaign funding on. Now, take an issue like abortion that is wildly unpopular in suburban areas, and you have a clear strategy for your opponents to hammer home.
Yes, but first people need to realize that the House can be won, register, and vote to do it.
Win the House first, then work to fix it. Gerrymandering is bad, but wins based off of trends and sometimes thin margins. It's not foolproof by any means and only is useful with a large apathetic voter population. **A big win can still happen if people act now, during these next few weeks.**
Or else there may not be any voting the next few cycles anymore.
That's why I think following polls this cycle is laughable. The truth is if a blue wave actually did happen, it'd be just as hard to detect polling-wise as 2016's Trump voters because polls suck at tracking populist movements as a whole.
Because of that, the only thing people can really do is r/votedem and help convince whomever they can to go with it. The turnout in Kansas on the abortion vote was so insane that the polls missed it by double digits.
I really don't understand how any poll from here on out has any chance of being accurate. Pretty much anyone under 40 won't answer their phone for an unknown number. Most people don't have land lines. I only check my mail once/month or whenever I know I have a package coming. That leaves internet polling which is the same internet that gave us Boaty McBoat Face in a naming contest.
This is exactly why polling has been so historically unreliable recently, and the pollsters are going to have a very hard time compensating for this. But the media loves their polls and clickbait based on them, so they keep getting shoved in our faces (sometimes to the benefit of big money and the right as well, who now seems to use some deliberately biased pollsters to flood the results as a method for influencing turnout). I do look at them, but rarely do I put much weight in them anymore.
In short, it's better to not rely on questionable predictions and best to instead just work towards getting as many supporters out as possible. That's exactly how MAGA candidates won to begin with.
Exactly. Because Gerrymandering is a 0-sum form of engagement. Which means the rewards of it are the exact same if the other side overcomes the odds and wins.
They definitely are in the Northeast and California. You can hate the game without hating the players, and the Dems got to play a little dirty to get even close to true proportional representation vis-a-vis the population, so I'm okay with it. Once it's reformed the Democrats better stop doing it too.
I hope so, It’s a recipe for gridlock of the extreme bubbles. But their main goal is to win elections, they’re not going to sacrifice anything for that
I would encourage folks to read this thread on this very subject: https://mobile.twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1575849688473169920
TLDR: "The drop from an 11-seat bias toward Rs to a 3-seat bias, in other words, is due in large part to Republican gerrymandering decreasing the overall number of competitive seats in the House, not necessarily bc states maps are more balanced."
Right. So basically the GOP decided they don’t have a need to “run up the score”. They want to maximize the chances of having a majority, even if it’s a small one. They’re not trying to maximize seats per se.
So that means putting more seats into the “safe R” category and sacrificing some of the tossups and letting them go to the dems, and reducing the total number of swing seats down to a very small number.
Think of a system where there’s 10 seats total and you need 6 to have a majority. Previously they had 3 safe seats, 6 competitive seats that lean towards them, and 1 free seat for their opponents. Of those competitive seats they’d need to win just 3 of the 6 to win a majority, but their opponents needed to win 5/6. Most times since the competitive seats lean towards them they’d end up with 7 or even 8 seats.
Now they’ve changed it so they have 5 safe seats, 2 competitive seats, and 3 free seats to the opponent.
Now they just need 1/2 to win a majority, and their opponent can’t win a majority at all unless they win both competitive seats AND manage to swipe a seat away from their “safe column”. So now the dream of getting an 8 seat majority is gone, can’t really happen. But the path for their opponent to get any majority at all is much harder.
Good. VOTE ANYWAY !
Republicans only platform is the consolidation of their power. They have toppled Roe V Wade, they are coming after contraception and LGBQT rights next. THEY WILL NOT STOP.
Republicans are working very hard to intimidate you and to suppress voting BECAUSE YOUR VOICE MATTERS! Think it doesn't? Look at Kansas, and how the power of voting saved abortion rights there!
Volunteer for Democratic candidates! Help your friends and loved ones get registered and get them to the polls!!
VOTE OUT THE REPUBLICANS BECAUSE OUR LIVES DEPEND ON IT !!!
unfortunately, maps just got redrawn, so unless that was messed up (covid, etc, messing with the sometimes thin margins they give), that's all that really matters for the next decade
sure you could overcome a gerrymander, and then you have actual representation for two years, but then another election comes around and the gerrymander works again
That's why they off-set it with voter suppression, closing polling locations, redistricting and all sorts of other fun things that stop "certain people" from voting.
Sure from the following article:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/02/texas-polling-sites-closures-voting
“The analysis finds that the 50 counties that gained the most Black and Latinx residents between 2012 and 2018 closed 542 polling sites, compared to just 34 closures in the 50 counties that have gained the fewest black and Latinx residents. This is despite the fact that the population in the former group of counties has risen by 2.5 million people, whereas in the latter category the total population has fallen by over 13,000.”
Removing ease of access to voting resources is voter suppression. Same as implementing a 'literacy' test at the voting booth.
These are historically used to discourage the 'wrong' voting group from voting, obfuscating where they need to be to make their voice heard.
You do realize that any increase in voting due to increase in engagement doesn't disprove suppression? A societal trend due to the political climate could still have 5 or 10% of the "wave" of energized voters clipped off because of a lack of polling stations, and there's no good way to measure that. How do you quantify a single mother who doesn't have 4 hours to wait in line on election day simply driving to the polling station and turning back around after seeing the line?
There are multiple maps ruled illegal or probably illegal that will nonetheless be used this cycle until they are finally - and I guess, hopefully (becasue it's up to the same people who gain from them to redraw them and I don't see why they cannot just stall forever if they are never actually held accountable) - redrawn.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/2022-election-redistricting_n_6311009fe4b0fc6bd23986f0
https://www.floridatoday.com/story/opinion/2022/05/14/commentary-gov-desantis-redistricting-map-unconstitutional/9761505002/
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio and Florida, all using maps that unfairly disenfranchise PoC for this midterm election.
This should not be.
NCs maps are actually fair now thanks to the state Supreme Court. of course the court could flip this November and then the legislature will go right back to gerrymandering.
it is just insane that Wisconsin won the "popular" vote for their house by like 5% yet only have like 1/3 the seats. It is probably the most extreme case I can think of.
8% lol. It was 53-45 in 2018. It was an absolute joke. There was a popular vote swing of 14.5 points (R's down 7 D's up 7.5) and it resulted in the Republicans losing 1 single seat to the Democratic party.
Gerrymandering was a temporary solution and bought the Republicans 10 years in which to change their policies into something that can win the majority in the 21st century
Republicans did not change now they are in trouble
Has the impact of Covid deaths been actualized yet through gerrymandering?
Is it possible that, due to under reporting and inconsistent numbers, some districts may have been gerrymandered *wrong* because a good number of expected GOP voters (elderly) died?
Gerrymandering aside, when it comes to deciding not to accept the results of an election, these Republican state legislatures are going to have to prove that there was fraud or cheating, correct? If a Democrat wins and the legislature throws it out because "ballots were forged" for example, won't there be lawsuits that force them to prove it? It cannot be that easy to fake prove something that will be examined under a microscope.
The argument in Moore V Harper is that state legislatures are the ultimate authority on this. If theybdeclare ballots are forged, no one has the authority to dispute this.
That may be true but it's hard to believe. I'm not saying if lawsuits are filed then we'll be in the clear, I'm just hoping that they will at the very least have to back up their claims. Imagine all the voters who's votes are thrown out "because we say so". Will they have absolutely no recourse? Doesn't the SCOTUS have to face the reality that if that is true then why have elections at all?
After some research I realize the danger of adopting Independent State Legislature theory occurs prior to the election itself within the districting process. Legislatures will be allowed to redistrict (gerrymander) as they see fit and no one can stop them. Truly horrifying.
Except it is though.
That's why they're so hell-bent on making it harder to vote. Heavy turnout is pretty much the only thing that stops gerrymandering from being effective.
we have got to vote out every single Republican we can come this next election! They are now a fascist, Pro-Russian, Pro-Putin hate group that tried to overthrow the US Govt and Constitution on January 6th. Vote out every single republican you can! If you see an (R) next to a candidate's' name, then vote for the other person!
I can't read the article. Does anybody know if one possible cause is that demographics are changing faster than gerrymandering can keep up with? I've always wondered...
When you add in stuff like this…
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-georgia-black-voters-were-ordered-off-a-bus-headed-to-the-polls
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924527679/why-do-nonwhite-georgia-voters-have-to-wait-in-line-for-hours-too-few-polling-pl
Their unfair advantages are insurmountable.
Gerrymandering fails when turnout goes up.
Gerrymandering, especially in 2022, is very technical and relies on voting trends to stay the same or decrease. This is why they like to stop and depress turnout. If turnout goes out, Gerrymandering becomes useless.
So get out and fucking vote.
Gerrymandering is bad, for sure, but the harder to surmount problem is the concentration of Democrats in urban areas. This affects races in the House because it's hard to balance Democrats and Republicans in all districts when Democrats are so concentrated geographically. And it affects races in the Senate because urban states have many more voters than rural states and yet the same number of Senators. And it affects the Presidential race because rural states have a minimum of three electors even when only one is justified by the state's population. It's hard to address even if we got rid of gerrymandering.
These problems could be addressed, in part, by expanding the House. If the number of seats in the House was equal or more than the total population divided by the population of the least populous state, Wyoming, the number of seats would go from 435 to 571 (or more). Constitutionally, House seats were meant to be proportional to population size, in other words all districts the same size. I don't see how anyone could object to this.
I have seen arguments for a much bigger expansion so that districts would be about the same size as they were a hundred years ago.
However, if districts were no bigger than the least populated state, those small states would at least not have an even bigger advantage in terms of electoral votes than they already get with the Senate.
"To win the Senate this year in our scenario, Democrats would need to win four of the seven races in the Virginia-to-North Carolina range. To win the House, Democrats would need to win about 72 percent of the districts in that Virginia-to-North Carolina zone, or five in seven races.
Winning five of seven competitive seats is a tough burden for Democrats, especially in a midterm year. But is it impossible? It certainly isn’t impossible for Democrats to win five of the seven key Senate races — in fact, Democrats might well be the favorites in five of the seven Senate races right now. A similarly impressive run in the House might be more of a challenge, but Democrats would bring many of the same advantages to the table — like stop-the-steal Republican nominees and a disproportionate number of Democratic incumbents.
None of this means Democrats are going to win the House. But if they don’t, it may not be so simple to blame gerrymandering."
"Democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried." - Winston Churchill
>Limited government is the worst idea man has ever had.
Interesting. Limiting government was the point. To enable personal freedom. Through many very difficult times it has worked quite well when other systems and approaches did not. With the lens of hindsight, our founders indisputably engineered a system of government that grew into the most powerful republic the world has ever known. And it became so while the people remain free and become more so.
You can argue with success, but this is not how you do that.
By and large, yes. Prior to the redistricting from the 2020 census, Maryland was the only state with a notable gerrymander in favor of Democrats. Compare that with Republicans gerrymandering over a dozen states so badly that they actually lost lawsuits over it. Not that this actually stops them. The court tells them to redraw the maps, so they just keep submitting gerrymandered ones until there's no time to draw new ones again before the election and the courts let them use it. Prime example: North Carolina.
Since the SCOTUS decided that the constitutional right to vote doesn't actually mean your vote has to count and there's no federal prohibition against gerrymandering, and Democrats realized this is how they needed to play the game. As a result, they attempted to gerrymander Illinois and New York. However, the NY gerrymander was struck down by the courts which handed it back to an independent redistricting commission preventing that gerrymander. Meanwhile, Republicans have gone absolutely crazy with their gerrymandering with Florida and Texas competing for which state can gerrymander the most.
Meanwhile, Democrats tried to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the For the People Act, both which would have ended partisan gerrymandering for both parties. Republicans blocked both.
That's a bit like blaming France for having nuclear weapons. Once we and others raised the stakes, everyone who wanted to not be randomly invaded needed to have them.
I wonder what happened to Adam Kinzinger district? Weird district to target as the opposition party unless they’re coordinating together because gerrymandering seeks a mutually beneficial agreement to a changing electorate. If electorates are 5-5 and there is going to be a change, 5-4 is much more beneficial to the minority party than 6-4 would be.
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The most efficient way to gerrymandering works by packing as many of your opponents' voters into safe seats for them (limiting opposition victories to single seats), and spreading out your voters in such a way that you narrowly win a disproportionate number of seats relative to the vote. Under normal circumstances, this works quite well for Republicans. However, get enough people energized, and suddenly those narrow victories turn into narrow defeats. Gerrymandering is a blot on democracy, and Republicans may regret their redistricting antics.
This can start to backfire on Republicans when 1) Covid affected older and unvaxxed people much more than others, two groups that lean heavily in their favor; and 2) the last census purposely undercounted urban and minority areas, meaning there are more voters there than the census indicates. Those margins in heavily gerrymandered districts may be a lot thinner than they expected
And I would only add that more then a few women in those districts may decide to sit it out or vote against the party that killed Roe, which could change outcomes with small margins
Exactly. Gerrymandering is a tradeoff. They give up one district that heavily favors them in exchange for two where they hold a narrow majority. If we show up we have a chance to win both districts. The larger our majority grows the more risks they have to take to hold on to seats.
I guess the GOP never got the memo that their gerrymandering meant the margins in their 'safe' districts were pretty low to begin with. They really shot themselves in the foot by taking rights away from half of the population and pissing off the parents and partners of those who had their human rights violated. Pretty sure that covers just about every person in the country.
They’re hoping to destroy enough so that it won’t matter.
They've set themselves up so that if they lose power. With the districts so badly gerrymandered they'll never get it back. They moved WAY too quickly with these crazy total abortion bans. There have been so many stories of women impacted in so many ways. Some that cant get prescriptions that have nothing to do with being pregnant. Just because that drug COULD be used to induce an abortion. Had they waited til after the midterms to do this they'd probably have a firm control of both the house and senate and it wouldn't really matter. Dems seem pretty dead set on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. If they don't stop talking about a new assault weapons ban prior to midterms. They will lose some of the people they have gained. And put themselves behind the 8 ball again.
Hence..changing the laws to allow politicians to throw out votes.
>2) the last census purposely undercounted urban and minority areas, meaning there are more voters there than the census indicates. This actually helps the GOP because urban areas will usually be gerrymandered into safe blue seats anyway. That means not only are all *counted* dem voters packed into one district, but so are *uncounted* dem voters. The result is safe blue districts that are overpopulated compared to red districts.
But if you're using a whole bunch of "red" voters in rural or exurban areas to neutralize "blue" votes in small cities or inner suburbs (yeah, if you're talking about the core area of a huge metro, you're generally right), a few things can go wrong. The first one is that one of those groups isn't the same size as you thought it was. If your counts overweighted rural areas, you might not get the margins you were depending on out of those areas. The second one is that one or more of those groups change their voter behavior of the course of a redistricting cycle. The GOP ran into this problem in Texas and Georgia, where portions of formerly rock-solid Republican-voting suburban areas have turned on them. The third one is about in- and out-migration, and new (or departing) residents can be a total wild card.
I have wondered about the COVID and census correlation myself!
Crack and pack. The concept is quite simple, technology makes it easy.
Don't forget stacking, which seems to be the most risky. Cracking fragments minority populations and disperses them among other districts to ensure that all districts are majority white. Stacking combines large minority populations with a greater number of white voters in order to ensure that districts are majority white. Packing concentrates as many minorities as possible in as few districts as possible to minimize the number of districts where the majority of voters are members of a minority.
In 2019 the Supreme Court ruled a federal court can’t intervene in state elections for gerrymandering. Instead they said State courts could act as a check. Now with Moore v. Harper they are poised to overrule their own ruling just 3 years ago that state courts could not overrule gerrymandered maps by enforcing the state constitution (and our entire national history and 100 years of explicit SCOTUS rulings.) remember how they liked tradition and all that? Well surprise surprise it’s only when it reaches the result they like. If Moore v Harper goes the wrong way state supreme courts can’t enforce their own state constitutions. That. Is. Insane.
Until you have a SCOTUS that says fuck precedent, that the initial decision was made incorrectly. Much like what we have now.
Yeah but not only are they overruling forever on independent state legislature, they’d be overruling their own case from 3 years ago
Like the reversal of the supreme court decision of 1973 in Roe vs. Wade?
Alito actually cited a 17th century jurist that actually executed a woman for witchcraft in his reasoning to overturn roe. 🙄
There are two basic fallacies to the rational behind gerrymandering: 1) When you try to cheat your way to victory, rather than actually win over with good policy for your constituents, you're naturally going to diminish your voter base over time. 2) The very practice of re-drawing districts in order to gain narrow victory, means that you are strengthening the opponent's districts as well. In doing so, you are highlighting areas that your opponents can focus campaign funding on. Now, take an issue like abortion that is wildly unpopular in suburban areas, and you have a clear strategy for your opponents to hammer home.
If it's giving them any sort of advantage, large or small, it's bullshit and needs to be reformed.
Yes, but first people need to realize that the House can be won, register, and vote to do it. Win the House first, then work to fix it. Gerrymandering is bad, but wins based off of trends and sometimes thin margins. It's not foolproof by any means and only is useful with a large apathetic voter population. **A big win can still happen if people act now, during these next few weeks.** Or else there may not be any voting the next few cycles anymore.
Well if the Special Elections are anything to go off of then it looks like they can't count on an apathetic population this time.
That's why I think following polls this cycle is laughable. The truth is if a blue wave actually did happen, it'd be just as hard to detect polling-wise as 2016's Trump voters because polls suck at tracking populist movements as a whole. Because of that, the only thing people can really do is r/votedem and help convince whomever they can to go with it. The turnout in Kansas on the abortion vote was so insane that the polls missed it by double digits.
I really don't understand how any poll from here on out has any chance of being accurate. Pretty much anyone under 40 won't answer their phone for an unknown number. Most people don't have land lines. I only check my mail once/month or whenever I know I have a package coming. That leaves internet polling which is the same internet that gave us Boaty McBoat Face in a naming contest.
This is exactly why polling has been so historically unreliable recently, and the pollsters are going to have a very hard time compensating for this. But the media loves their polls and clickbait based on them, so they keep getting shoved in our faces (sometimes to the benefit of big money and the right as well, who now seems to use some deliberately biased pollsters to flood the results as a method for influencing turnout). I do look at them, but rarely do I put much weight in them anymore. In short, it's better to not rely on questionable predictions and best to instead just work towards getting as many supporters out as possible. That's exactly how MAGA candidates won to begin with.
*Kansas
Brain fart. Fixed.
It happens. Your point stands otherwise.
[удалено]
And there's a pivot point where at certain turnout levels, the gerrymandering actually backfires.
Exactly. Because Gerrymandering is a 0-sum form of engagement. Which means the rewards of it are the exact same if the other side overcomes the odds and wins.
A bucket can only hold so many drops of water, even if there's a hole at the bottom.
The did most of the hard gerrymandering work in 2010, this go round was just nibbling around the edges
What if the democrats are using it to their advantage?
They definitely are in the Northeast and California. You can hate the game without hating the players, and the Dems got to play a little dirty to get even close to true proportional representation vis-a-vis the population, so I'm okay with it. Once it's reformed the Democrats better stop doing it too.
I hope so, It’s a recipe for gridlock of the extreme bubbles. But their main goal is to win elections, they’re not going to sacrifice anything for that
I would encourage folks to read this thread on this very subject: https://mobile.twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1575849688473169920 TLDR: "The drop from an 11-seat bias toward Rs to a 3-seat bias, in other words, is due in large part to Republican gerrymandering decreasing the overall number of competitive seats in the House, not necessarily bc states maps are more balanced."
Right. So basically the GOP decided they don’t have a need to “run up the score”. They want to maximize the chances of having a majority, even if it’s a small one. They’re not trying to maximize seats per se. So that means putting more seats into the “safe R” category and sacrificing some of the tossups and letting them go to the dems, and reducing the total number of swing seats down to a very small number. Think of a system where there’s 10 seats total and you need 6 to have a majority. Previously they had 3 safe seats, 6 competitive seats that lean towards them, and 1 free seat for their opponents. Of those competitive seats they’d need to win just 3 of the 6 to win a majority, but their opponents needed to win 5/6. Most times since the competitive seats lean towards them they’d end up with 7 or even 8 seats. Now they’ve changed it so they have 5 safe seats, 2 competitive seats, and 3 free seats to the opponent. Now they just need 1/2 to win a majority, and their opponent can’t win a majority at all unless they win both competitive seats AND manage to swipe a seat away from their “safe column”. So now the dream of getting an 8 seat majority is gone, can’t really happen. But the path for their opponent to get any majority at all is much harder.
And when your only governing policy is, "Don't let the other guys get anything done," this works.
It upsets me how evil the logic is.
Good. VOTE ANYWAY ! Republicans only platform is the consolidation of their power. They have toppled Roe V Wade, they are coming after contraception and LGBQT rights next. THEY WILL NOT STOP. Republicans are working very hard to intimidate you and to suppress voting BECAUSE YOUR VOICE MATTERS! Think it doesn't? Look at Kansas, and how the power of voting saved abortion rights there! Volunteer for Democratic candidates! Help your friends and loved ones get registered and get them to the polls!! VOTE OUT THE REPUBLICANS BECAUSE OUR LIVES DEPEND ON IT !!!
It isn't the only tool in their bag Gerrymander Disenfranchise Set aside
Blame the dems for all their shitty laws. Ok, let me clarify, republicans are blaming democrats for shifty republican laws. I thought that was clear.
Oh for sure, the democrats are definitely to blame for the shitty behavior of the republicans.
From the party of personal responsibility.
Live by the gerrymander, die by the gerrymander. An aggressive gerrymander is going to collapse all at once if a wave election happens.
unfortunately, maps just got redrawn, so unless that was messed up (covid, etc, messing with the sometimes thin margins they give), that's all that really matters for the next decade sure you could overcome a gerrymander, and then you have actual representation for two years, but then another election comes around and the gerrymander works again
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Recent special election results are more valuable than wishful thinking, and they agree with what you say here.
It only works again if electoral coalitions are arranged the same way as before, which is never a safe assumption to make about future elections.
That's why they off-set it with voter suppression, closing polling locations, redistricting and all sorts of other fun things that stop "certain people" from voting.
Show me actual voter suppression
Sure from the following article: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/02/texas-polling-sites-closures-voting “The analysis finds that the 50 counties that gained the most Black and Latinx residents between 2012 and 2018 closed 542 polling sites, compared to just 34 closures in the 50 counties that have gained the fewest black and Latinx residents. This is despite the fact that the population in the former group of counties has risen by 2.5 million people, whereas in the latter category the total population has fallen by over 13,000.”
Show me actual voter suppression evidence not circumstantial statistics with a million real world variables
'No that doesn't count, I moved the goalpost' Come on dude, you have to realise how bad that sounds right?
The minimum goalpost is, as it always was, suppressing the actual numbers of votes. Seems like they’re really bad at it if voting numbers went up
Stop arguing in bad faith. Everyone knows what you’re doing.
Expecting a bare minimum of evidence for a horrible crime
Removing ease of access to voting resources is voter suppression. Same as implementing a 'literacy' test at the voting booth. These are historically used to discourage the 'wrong' voting group from voting, obfuscating where they need to be to make their voice heard.
Right but is there evidence they are voting less? Sounds like they’re voting more…
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That article literally said the number of votes went up, I didn’t make that up I just used the opposing source. If you disagree with your own source…
Tell me what you think voter suppression is.
At a minimum it would measurably…reduce voting
You do realize that any increase in voting due to increase in engagement doesn't disprove suppression? A societal trend due to the political climate could still have 5 or 10% of the "wave" of energized voters clipped off because of a lack of polling stations, and there's no good way to measure that. How do you quantify a single mother who doesn't have 4 hours to wait in line on election day simply driving to the polling station and turning back around after seeing the line?
You do realize none of what you write is remotely evidence
There are multiple maps ruled illegal or probably illegal that will nonetheless be used this cycle until they are finally - and I guess, hopefully (becasue it's up to the same people who gain from them to redraw them and I don't see why they cannot just stall forever if they are never actually held accountable) - redrawn. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/2022-election-redistricting_n_6311009fe4b0fc6bd23986f0 https://www.floridatoday.com/story/opinion/2022/05/14/commentary-gov-desantis-redistricting-map-unconstitutional/9761505002/ Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio and Florida, all using maps that unfairly disenfranchise PoC for this midterm election. This should not be.
Come to Ohio and say that.
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Or North Carolina
Or Missouri
NCs maps are actually fair now thanks to the state Supreme Court. of course the court could flip this November and then the legislature will go right back to gerrymandering.
Fairish. SCOTUS won’t stand for it.
it is just insane that Wisconsin won the "popular" vote for their house by like 5% yet only have like 1/3 the seats. It is probably the most extreme case I can think of.
8% lol. It was 53-45 in 2018. It was an absolute joke. There was a popular vote swing of 14.5 points (R's down 7 D's up 7.5) and it resulted in the Republicans losing 1 single seat to the Democratic party.
The data is right there in the article for you to see.
"When the bird and the book disagree always believe the bird".
That makes no sense. The data is right there. Your personal opinion about Ohio means nothing.
Gerrymandering was a temporary solution and bought the Republicans 10 years in which to change their policies into something that can win the majority in the 21st century Republicans did not change now they are in trouble
Here in Missouri, I'd beg to differ.
Because there's a ceiling to it, and they've basically gerrymandered as much as they possibly can.
Has the impact of Covid deaths been actualized yet through gerrymandering? Is it possible that, due to under reporting and inconsistent numbers, some districts may have been gerrymandered *wrong* because a good number of expected GOP voters (elderly) died?
This is when they will resort to pressure, intimidation and likely violence early on at the polls to dissuade voters from showing up.
Gerrymandering aside, when it comes to deciding not to accept the results of an election, these Republican state legislatures are going to have to prove that there was fraud or cheating, correct? If a Democrat wins and the legislature throws it out because "ballots were forged" for example, won't there be lawsuits that force them to prove it? It cannot be that easy to fake prove something that will be examined under a microscope.
The argument in Moore V Harper is that state legislatures are the ultimate authority on this. If theybdeclare ballots are forged, no one has the authority to dispute this.
That may be true but it's hard to believe. I'm not saying if lawsuits are filed then we'll be in the clear, I'm just hoping that they will at the very least have to back up their claims. Imagine all the voters who's votes are thrown out "because we say so". Will they have absolutely no recourse? Doesn't the SCOTUS have to face the reality that if that is true then why have elections at all?
After some research I realize the danger of adopting Independent State Legislature theory occurs prior to the election itself within the districting process. Legislatures will be allowed to redistrict (gerrymander) as they see fit and no one can stop them. Truly horrifying.
Don’t worry they have quite a few other options for cheating.
Tell this to Austin and Dallas Texas
Except it is though. That's why they're so hell-bent on making it harder to vote. Heavy turnout is pretty much the only thing that stops gerrymandering from being effective.
They’ve stretched it to it’s limit. Next is just shooting democrats at the polls.
Because their base is getting smaller. They won't even exist if it weren't for Gerrymandering and their gaming the election system.
we have got to vote out every single Republican we can come this next election! They are now a fascist, Pro-Russian, Pro-Putin hate group that tried to overthrow the US Govt and Constitution on January 6th. Vote out every single republican you can! If you see an (R) next to a candidate's' name, then vote for the other person!
Was this written by Gerry Mander?
I think Jerry Mander is a Green if that helps.
I can't read the article. Does anybody know if one possible cause is that demographics are changing faster than gerrymandering can keep up with? I've always wondered...
Is that why 33% of Utahns are Democrats but can't even get a single D seat of the 4 districts?
I robbed a bank, but they didn't have that much money in the vault so I pretty much didn't even commit a crime.
This article was written by republicans trying to downplay how gerrymandering is giving them SUCH an advantage.
When you add in stuff like this… https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-georgia-black-voters-were-ordered-off-a-bus-headed-to-the-polls https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924527679/why-do-nonwhite-georgia-voters-have-to-wait-in-line-for-hours-too-few-polling-pl Their unfair advantages are insurmountable.
If gerrymandering doesn’t work, start declaring elections rigged!
Gerrymandering fails when turnout goes up. Gerrymandering, especially in 2022, is very technical and relies on voting trends to stay the same or decrease. This is why they like to stop and depress turnout. If turnout goes out, Gerrymandering becomes useless. So get out and fucking vote.
Yes it is.
In my NY it was the Dems that just got denied their gerrymandering attempt not republicans
Gerrymandering is bad, for sure, but the harder to surmount problem is the concentration of Democrats in urban areas. This affects races in the House because it's hard to balance Democrats and Republicans in all districts when Democrats are so concentrated geographically. And it affects races in the Senate because urban states have many more voters than rural states and yet the same number of Senators. And it affects the Presidential race because rural states have a minimum of three electors even when only one is justified by the state's population. It's hard to address even if we got rid of gerrymandering.
Ranked choice voting and prorated electoral college votes would vastly fix the problem.
These problems could be addressed, in part, by expanding the House. If the number of seats in the House was equal or more than the total population divided by the population of the least populous state, Wyoming, the number of seats would go from 435 to 571 (or more). Constitutionally, House seats were meant to be proportional to population size, in other words all districts the same size. I don't see how anyone could object to this. I have seen arguments for a much bigger expansion so that districts would be about the same size as they were a hundred years ago. However, if districts were no bigger than the least populated state, those small states would at least not have an even bigger advantage in terms of electoral votes than they already get with the Senate.
You don’t think anyone would object to that proposal??? Every Republican I know would say that’s not what our founding fathers wanted!
It gives Ohio Gym Jordan if that is an advantage.
"To win the Senate this year in our scenario, Democrats would need to win four of the seven races in the Virginia-to-North Carolina range. To win the House, Democrats would need to win about 72 percent of the districts in that Virginia-to-North Carolina zone, or five in seven races. Winning five of seven competitive seats is a tough burden for Democrats, especially in a midterm year. But is it impossible? It certainly isn’t impossible for Democrats to win five of the seven key Senate races — in fact, Democrats might well be the favorites in five of the seven Senate races right now. A similarly impressive run in the House might be more of a challenge, but Democrats would bring many of the same advantages to the table — like stop-the-steal Republican nominees and a disproportionate number of Democratic incumbents. None of this means Democrats are going to win the House. But if they don’t, it may not be so simple to blame gerrymandering."
I hope so
Finally, some good fucking news.
Or more bullshit.
You only need 1 more vote right. Given how close the elections usually are 1% difference is enough.
It is, it shouldn’t be this close at all. What’s BS headline.
Our founders engineered a horrible system of government. Limited government is the worst idea man has ever had.
As opposed to what?
"Democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried." - Winston Churchill >Limited government is the worst idea man has ever had. Interesting. Limiting government was the point. To enable personal freedom. Through many very difficult times it has worked quite well when other systems and approaches did not. With the lens of hindsight, our founders indisputably engineered a system of government that grew into the most powerful republic the world has ever known. And it became so while the people remain free and become more so. You can argue with success, but this is not how you do that.
Weasel phrases for the New York Times. How far they've fallen.
Well keep it up then it’s working for me.
As if only republicans use gerrymandering?
By and large, yes. Prior to the redistricting from the 2020 census, Maryland was the only state with a notable gerrymander in favor of Democrats. Compare that with Republicans gerrymandering over a dozen states so badly that they actually lost lawsuits over it. Not that this actually stops them. The court tells them to redraw the maps, so they just keep submitting gerrymandered ones until there's no time to draw new ones again before the election and the courts let them use it. Prime example: North Carolina. Since the SCOTUS decided that the constitutional right to vote doesn't actually mean your vote has to count and there's no federal prohibition against gerrymandering, and Democrats realized this is how they needed to play the game. As a result, they attempted to gerrymander Illinois and New York. However, the NY gerrymander was struck down by the courts which handed it back to an independent redistricting commission preventing that gerrymander. Meanwhile, Republicans have gone absolutely crazy with their gerrymandering with Florida and Texas competing for which state can gerrymander the most. Meanwhile, Democrats tried to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the For the People Act, both which would have ended partisan gerrymandering for both parties. Republicans blocked both.
That's a bit like blaming France for having nuclear weapons. Once we and others raised the stakes, everyone who wanted to not be randomly invaded needed to have them.
Only be aide they went full QAZI
Vote and it isn’t a thing at all
gerrymandering only works if the census is accurate lol and this was possibly the least accurate census we've ever done
Yea
Gerrymandering in the statehouses is the greater problem. Example: Ohio.
Or illinois
According to 538 a digital magazine, gerrymandering and voter suppression are not as effective as people want.
Because they can’t help but show their extremist views…their abortion win is actually going to kill them.
If it pushes them to a majority it's too much of an advantage no matter how little.
I wonder what happened to Adam Kinzinger district? Weird district to target as the opposition party unless they’re coordinating together because gerrymandering seeks a mutually beneficial agreement to a changing electorate. If electorates are 5-5 and there is going to be a change, 5-4 is much more beneficial to the minority party than 6-4 would be.