How Fair Are Our Elections? Do the Democrats Have a Chance of Winning Back the House?

 Gerrymandering, Voter ID Laws Created for a Virtually Non-Existent Problem, Voter Suppression, Disenfranchising Voters, How Fair Are Our Elections?

Original meme by www.Facebook.com/StoptheObstructionistTeaParty and www.Medic3569.blogspot.com

 Republicans have passed "Voter ID" laws in 34 states that often address things other than preventing people to vote when their not eligible. Laws that restrict early voting hours, types of ID acceptable, not extending voting hours when their are long lines, limiting the number of voting stations in particular areas (where Democrats are more likely to vote,) all suppress, and disenfranchise the vote of minorities and other specified voting demographics. 


 A twitter friend of mine @HenryStradford  tweeted this: "The only true Democracy is India...imagine that! 1+Billion people...consider the logistics of holding elections. Yet, they do.." I have to wonder if he's right.


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The following is from a Center For American Progress Action Fund article on January 16, 2014:

  With election administration delegated to officials and boards in more than 3,000 counties and localities in the United States, the ease with which one exercises his or her right to vote can depend on where he or she lives. Not only do state voting laws differ across the nation, even within a state, county-based election administration varies widely.

  Take, for example, Florida’s Duval County, which during the 2012 election had provisional ballots cast at a rate four times higher than the state average. This is particularly alarming given that Duval County also rejected more than 34 percent of the provisional ballots cast in the county during the 2012 election. Similarly, voters in Indiana’s Tippecanoe County cast provisional ballots at a rate more than seven and a half times the state average. While provisional ballots are legally prescribed and serve as a fail-safe mechanism that allow voters to cast a ballot when questions regarding his or her eligibility to vote arise, both examples raise questions as to why these counties issued provisional ballots at rates so much higher than their state’s average.

Read the Report: http://www.scribd.com/doc/200129107/Unequal-Access-A-County-by-County-Analysis-of-Election-Administration-in-Swing-States-in-the-2012-Election
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Anything Different in the Upcoming Elections?

(CNN) -- The midterm elections are around the corner. The big question will obviously be what happens to control of the House and Senate. But control of Congress is only one part of the equation. There are a series of issues that will shape the individual races that will tell us a lot about which way American politics is heading.

 Former Ohio Rep. Steven LaTourette and the Main Street Partnership, a group with strong backing from the corporate world, are trying to counteract the power of the tea party, which they believe is damaging the standing of the GOP. "We want our party back," LaTourette explained to the The New York Times.

 The most visible battle between a mainstream Republican and tea party Republican is taking place in Kentucky, where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is facing a challenge from Matt Bevin in the primary. In Texas, the controversial right-wing Rep. Steve Stockman is running against Sen. John Cornyn.

 There are certain must-wins for Democrats if they are to show that they are capable of taking advantage of this moment. In Florida's 13th District, Alex Sink, a well-known and well-respected Democrat, is attempting to win the seat of long-term Republican veteran Bill Young, who recently died, leaving  open this highly competitive district. If Democrats can't win this special election on March 11, it will signal trouble. Read More of CNN.COM's Five Big Questions on 2014 Elections

Retirements Hurt Democrats' House Prospects

AP Photo

 The Democratic quest to win the House majority has always been something close to mission impossible. A procession of lawmakers opting for retirement is pushing the prize even further beyond the party’s grasp.
Seventeen seats shy of the majority and confronting an electoral landscape tilted against them, Democrats have virtually no room for error in the November midterms. Yet the problems they’re encountering of late are coming from within their own ranks. Read More Politico - House Democrats Retiring

Democrats Will Need to Get Out the Vote To Have Any Chance 

 With all the Republicans efforts to tip the elections in their favor through Voter ID laws, suppressing votes, disenfranchising voters, gerrymandering, and the backing of the ultra-rich and corporations, it will be very difficult, to say the least, to keep control of the Senate, much less, to win back the House.  If the U. S. Supreme Court sides with McCutcheon in the McCutcheon v FEC, which it heard arguments for on October 8, 2013, it will be that much harder and a total disaster for our beloved country. The U. S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision created "Corporate Personhood" and removed limits on how much corporations could contribute to political campaigns, and donors could be kept unanimous. As you can see in the meme below top donors from the fossil fuel industry contributed  over $11M in the 2012 election cycle. If the court sides with McCutcheon those same donors could contribute over $312M, or, 27x more.

  

Fixing a Big Part of the Problem - Taking Money out of Politics

Overturn Citizens United

 There is a growing movement across the country that is calling for the U.S. Supreme Court's decision, in the 2010 Citizens United v FEC case to overturn it through one or more amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

 There are currently Constitutional amendments pending in the Congress that would overturn Citizens United by (1) making it clear that corporations do not have constitutional rights, such as "free speech," which are only for natural persons; and by (2) restoring Congress' and the states' authority to limit campaign gifts and spending. See H.J. Res 20 and  H.J. Res 21.

Overturning the disastrous Citizens United decision is NOT a partisan issue, it is an Across-the-Aisle effort. In a 2010/2011 Peter Hart poll 79% of Americans, including 68% of Republicans, 82% of Independents, and 87% of Democrats "support a Constitutional amendment that would overturn the Citizens United decision and make clear that corporations do not have the same rights as people."

Furthermore, a 2012 Associated Press poll found that 83% of Americans, including 81% of Republicans, 78% of Independents, and 85% of Democrats believe "there should be limits on the amount of money corporations, unions, and other organizations can contribute to outside organizations trying to influence campaigns for President, Senate, and U.S. House."

Free Speech For People has compiled:

• 111 Republicans who have called for an amendment to overturn Citizens United;
• 9 Republicans who have criticized Citizens United for it's claim that corporations have constitutional   rights; and
• 10 more Republicans who have criticized Citizens United in more general terms.

Information in this section of the post, some which has been reprinted was provided by Free Speech For People. 

More than 120 National Organizations -- have endorsed the United for the People collaborative's unified Call to Action for a Constitutional amendment. For information click the link above or go to www.United4ThePeople.org.

 Find an organization operating in your area. Get involved For A Better America and make your voice heard by contacting your;

U.S. Senators and Congressmen and women through GovTrack.us. and

State Assemblymen/women and State Senators at VoteSmart.org

Organizations involved in the effort that you should look at are:

Democracy is for People                        and as a resource: Siena College Moreland Commission poll


Move To Amend                                                                Huff Post Politics - Pearl Korn: Mission is Clear   

United For The People

37 Republican Seats Up In The Congress - Let's Look at VOTER ID LAWS and GERRYMANDERING

Did You Know That In Some Places (like PA) There Were 75,000 More Votes For Democratic Congressmen Yet The GOP Captured All But 5 of the States 18 Congressional Seats?

2012 Election - House of Representatives (Congress) chart by dailykos.com

On the chart above you can see that the Democrats captured 51.2% of the popular vote, nationally, for the House of Representatives, yet they won fewer seats. How can that be? Gerrymandering. Look at Pennsylvania. 50.8% of the voters in PA voted for Democratic Congressmen, yet the Republicans won all but 5 of the 18 Congressional seats, How? Gerrymandering.

To further understand what happened in Pennsylvania see the Nov. 15, 2012 Article by NewsWorks - Did Gerrymandering Rob PA Democrats of Congressional Seats?

What Exactly is "Gerrymandering" -- How Does It Work?

 Gerrymandering is defined in Wikipedia (you will find pretty much the same definition in any dictionary) as follows: "In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries to create partisan advantaged districts. The resulting district is known as a gerrymander

 In addition, Wikipedia continues, to its use achieving desired electoral results for a particular party, gerrymandering may be used to help or hinder a particular demographic, such as a political, ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, or class group, such as in U.S. federal voting district boundaries that produce a majority of constituents representative of African-American or other racial minorities, known as "majority-minority districts".

Gerrymandering is the manipulation of electoral district boundaries for political gain. By creating a few "forfeit" districts where voters vote overwhelmingly for rival candidates, gerrymandering politicians can manufacture more narrow wins among the districts they do seek to win. Gerrymandering relies on the wasted vote effect, effectively concentrating wasted votes among opponents while minimizing wasted votes among supporters. Consequently, gerrymandering is typically done under voting systems using single-member districts, which have more wasted votes.

For the 2010 documentary film, see Gerrymandering (film). The etymology of the word gerrymandering dates back to a redrawing of Massachusetts' state Senate election districts in 1812.^[1] It was named after the governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry, who signed a bill redistricting the state to his own advantage. One district was described as having the shape of a salamander; hence the term gerrymandering.^[2][3]

 "Democrats are understandably annoyed that despite the fact that Democratic House candidates nationally received more aggregate votes than Republican candidates, the Republicans maintained a solid 234-201 majority. Successful Republican gerrymandering had something to do with it." Eric Black of the MinnPost stated in an article on October 7, 2013" 

In an article by www. pagerrymander.weebly.com the following was stated: "We knew that the Republicans would use their control of the process to draw a map that benefited Republicans, but we did not expect them to abuse their power to this degree, all while shutting out the public."

In a January 2012 an article by ThinkProgress - Thanks To Gerrymandering, Democrats Would Need To Win The Popular Vote By Over 7 Percent To Take Back The House it is explained that the Democrats would have to win by 7% over the GOP to take back the U.S. House of Representatives.

The simplest way I can say what the GOP is doing with gerrymandering districts is this: wherever the Republicans control their State Government (the State Legislature controls drawing the district lines) they are gerrymandering the districts. They redistrict (draw new district lines) to benefit themselves. Here's how the GOP gerrymanders a state; if you had a state with 100 voters, half Democrats, half Republicans, and drew the district lines so that all 50 Democrats were in 1 district, and the rest of the state, with the 50 Republican voters, was broken up into 10 districts, the GOP would win with 10 districts, and the Democrats would only win 1 district, even though 50 people voted Democratic, and 50 people voted Republican. If each district represented a seat in U.S. House of Representatives (Congress,) the GOP would gain 10 seats, and the Democrats would gain 1 seat. That's 10 Republican Congressmen/women vs. 1 Democratic Congressman/woman out of 100 voters, 50 GOP and 50 Dem. That's why (with the actual numbers) the Democrats would have to win by a margin of 7% to take back the House in 2014.

Photo by www.winningprogressive.org

 Who Controls the States And Drawing The Lines?

The drawing  of  "District Lines" is controlled by the State Legislature. See StateScape's "Legislative Control 2013" for a chart showing who has who has control in each state.

26 States have a Republican-Controlled Legislature.
18 States have a Democratic-Controlled Legislature.
  6 States and the District of Columbia have a split-controlled or non-partisan Legislature.

It is important to note that:

In 23 of the 26 States that have Republican-Controlled Legislatures, the Governor's office and both houses are controlled by the Republicans.

In only 12 of the 18 States that have Democratic-Controlled Legislatures are the Governor's office and both houses controlled by their party.

Voter ID Laws Were Passed in 34 States to Supposedly Combat Voter Fraud - Problem? Voter Fraud Almost Non-Existent 

 

But the Laws Are Disenfranchising Hundreds of Thousands of Minorities (Likely to Vote Democratic) From Voting

 The Governor's office, and State Legislatures, are responsible for another issue swaying the elections in the direction of the Republican/Tea Party. Voter ID Laws. Voter ID Laws, disenfranchising Minorities and other Democratic voters have been, and are being, put in place in states that are controlled by the Republicans and Tea Party members. In fact, 34 states have passed voter ID laws since the Republican's gains in State Governments in the 2010 midterm elections.

 On September 18, 2012 Slate.com asked "How Much Voter Fraud Is There? This is in part what they found:

Since the 2010 elections, many Republican state legislatures (as well as Rhode Island's Democratic-controlled body) have moved to pass stronger voter ID laws. Though the supposed goal of this legislation is to stop voter fraud, the data on how much fraud is actually happening are hard to come by.

News21, part of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education, has mounted an intensive effort to try to flesh out that record. News21 students have requested and reviewed thousands of public records, court documents, and media reports to see how many prosecutions for election fraud have been made in each state. The result: "analysis of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases since 2000 shows that while fraud has occurred, the rate is infinitesimal." The map above illustrates the number of confirmed voter fraud cases found by News21 dating back to 2000. Out of hundreds of millions of ballots cast, they counted 633 incidents. Among states with voter ID laws on the books, Georgia and Kansas have seen the most prosecutions, with 80 and 97 cases respectively. In Pennsylvania, which may require voters to show identification on Election Day if the state’s Supreme Court does not block the new law from taking effect, the number of fraud cases was just five. Read More - See the Map of Voter Fraud by State since 2000

For more recent facts about Voter Fraud we looked at several sources:

PolitiFact/Texas found that Texas' attorney general Greg Abbott, has his facts wrong on the voting process, U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson said in an opinion column published Aug. 8, 2013, in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. For example, "Abbott advocates the use of voter ID laws, allegedly to stop voter fraud," the Dallas Democrat wrote. "Studies have shown that voter fraud is non-existent in Texas."
 
"Non-existent" is pretty strong; we don’t have to look any farther than our own reporting to know that statement isn’t entirely accurate. But how prevalent is voter fraud in Texas? Johnson spokesman Cameron Trimble told us by phone and email that the column should have said "virtually" non-existent. He sent us web links to research and news stories that described nationwide voter fraud as " rare." None of the materials analyzed fraud in Texas specifically, and we found only one mention of a Texas case -- the 2006 conviction of a Pecos woman who filled out and mailed absentee ballots for others.

On the UP w/Steve Kornacki  on Sunday he quoted The Columbia Dispatch as stating that in the 2012 elections in Ohio only 17 cases were found out of 5.6 million voters. And in Iowa the Secretary of State, Matt Schultz,  (who blatantly displays a big red button on his website that offers a "Voter Fraud Hotline") spent $150,000 of taxpayer money to find out there were only 16 cases found out of all the voters there. The numbers don't get much higher anywhere else in the country. Georgia and Kansas have seen the most prosecutions, with 80 and 97 cases respectively.

Both on the UP w./Steve Kornacki and in the Salon.com/PolicyMic December 21, 2013 article "Study confirms every bad thing you suspected about voter ID laws" the following was discovered:

According to new research by University of Massachusetts Boston sociologist Keith Bentele and political scientist Erin O’Brien, the states that have enacted tougher voter ID laws in the past few years are also the same states where both minority and lower-income voter turnout had increased in recent years.

Focusing further analysis on just 2011, when the vast majority of voter ID regulations were passed, the researchers found that states which passed the legislation were highly likely to have:
- Republicans in control of both houses of the state legislature and the governorship
- Strong probabilities of being swing states in the 2012 elections
- Minority turnout which was higher in the 2008 election and with high proportions of African-American voters
- Larger numbers of allegations of fraud in 2004, though these had a “much smaller substantive impact relative to partisan and racial factors.”

 The authors note that the study’s results carry ominous implications and demonstrate voter ID laws have “an uncomfortable relationship to the political activism of blacks and the poor.”

The fact is that Voter ID Laws really have nothing to do with Voter Fraud and everything to do with disenfranchising minorities and likely Democratic voters. One scary thing is that with only 17 cases of voter fraud out of 5.6 million voters in Ohio, and 16 cases in Iowa a Washington Post poll recently found that 48% of Americans think that voter fraud is "a major problem." 33% think it's a minor problem and only 14% think it's no problem. 74% of people think that photo ID should be required, though it is a major problem for some people to get the required ID's. To get State issued ID's you need a birth certificate which for people not living in the state they were born in ca find themselves having to pay a fee to get a copy of their birth certificate of up to $33.00. Not everyone has $33.00 to get a copy of their birth certificate. Niot everyone has transportation to run around to different agencies trying to get the proof they'll need to get a photo ID. States like Texas whose laws won't accept a student ID  from a State College but will accept a gun permit are specifically designed to disenfranchise voters that are likely to vote Democratic.

Photo by newyorker.com

The Dept. of Justice Calls in the Big Guns to Combat

 Voter ID Laws

It’s difficult to exaggerate the prominence Stanford Law Professor Pam Karlan enjoys within the progressive legal community. Karlan is one of the most active members of the Supreme Court bar — among other things, she co-authored the brief that convinced the justices to strike down the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act last June. She is a former litigator for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and she is among the most widely regarded voting rights experts in the nation. If President Obama had shown more courage in the early years of his presidency, or if Senate Democrats had deployed the nuclear option sooner, she would be a federal appellate judge today. Many Court watchers, including myself, would choose her if we could place only one person on the Supreme Court.
So when the Justice Department revealed on Friday that Karlan would become the nation’s top voting rights attorney, it was as if Marsellus Wallace called up the many voters being disenfranchised in states like Texas and North Carolina, and told them that he’s sending The Wolf. READ MORE from ThinkProgress

mrc.org

Meet the 37 Republicans Who Could Lose Their Jobs For Shutting Down The Government

On October 24, 2013 the Huffington Post put out an article with the above headline. This article tells you a little about each of the 37 Republicans that we could fire and take their seats. It's definitely worth the read. Huffington Post - October 24, 2013 - Meet the 37 Republicans...

^{References from Wikipedia for above}

1. There is no evidence that the famous American portrait painter Gilbert Stuart had any involvement with either the design, drawing, or naming of the cartoon, or with the coining of the term. Detailed biographies and academic journal articles about Stuart make no reference to gerrymandering. The myth of Stuart’s association with the original gerrymander has been reproduced and spread, without verification or sources, from one reference book and Internet site to another. Modern scholars of Stuart are in agreement that no proof exists to credit him with the term or cartoon and that he had the propensity not to be involved with such issues. Martis, Kenneth C. (2008). "The Original Gerrymander". Political Geography 27 (4): 833–839. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2008.09.003.
2. O’Brien, D. C. (1984). "Elkanah Tisdale: Designer, Engraver and Miniature Painter". Connecticut Historical Bulletin 49 (2): 83–96.
3. Library of Congress. Original woodblocks for printing “Gerrymander” political cartoon. Geography and Map Reading Room. LCCN Permalink: http://lccn.loc.gov/2003620165.