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?
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| 2012 Election - House of Representatives (Congress) chart by dailykos.com |
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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.
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.
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.
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| 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
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| mrc.org |
Meet the 37 Republicans Who Could Lose Their Jobs For Shutting Down The Government
References from Wikipedia for above
- 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.
- O’Brien, D. C. (1984). "Elkanah Tisdale: Designer, Engraver and Miniature Painter". Connecticut Historical Bulletin 49 (2): 83–96.
- Library
of Congress. Original woodblocks for printing “Gerrymander” political
cartoon. Geography and Map Reading Room. LCCN Permalink: http://lccn.loc.gov/2003620165.
