Gerrymandering and Voter Suppression

From The New York Times: Trump Says He Will Seek Citizenship Information From Existing Federal Records, Not the Census

• The Trump Administration has once again changed direction and decided not to include the citizenship question on the census. The data that the Administration claims that it wants can be obtained from other government databases.
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• The Administration admitted that one of their goals is to provide data so states can draw district boundaries base on equal numbers of eligible voters rather than total population.
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  “This information is also relevant to administering our elections,” said Mr. Trump. “Some states may want to draw state and local legislative districts, based upon the voter eligible population.”

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  Maps based only on the citizen population would reflect an electorate that is more white and less diverse than the nation at large ” and generally more favorable to the Republican Party.
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• In Evenwel v Abbott, Justice Ginsburg, speaking for the majority, notes this is an open question whether district boundaries based on eligible voters is permissible.
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• The article doesn't mention the Hofeller thumb drive containing data showing at least one major goal of the citizenship question was to deliberately suppress the count of the immigrant population.

Edited by Chiroptera, : Corrected a copy'n'paste failure.

From the New York Times: Gerrymandering, an Army of Voters Meets a Dug-in FoeAs Kagan pointed out in her dissent in Rucho, the majority was very naive (or very disengenious) when they suggested that the voters in the states can remedy the Gerrymandering problem.The article describes how hard it is for the people to fight against privileged groups entrenched in the government.The article does mention one recalcitrant Democratic state, Maryland (where, as I feared, the Democrats point to Republican anti-democracy to justify their own anti-democracy), but most of the anti-democracy is entrenched in Republican state governments.Not that there's no hope at all, but a reminder that the fight for democracy, liberty, and equality is almost always a very hard one, and unfortunately not one that is always guaranteed to succeed.

For a party that screams about "witchhunts", they sure do like using them.From the Guardian: Revealed: Georgia Republicans use power of state to suppress minority voteThe Georgia Republicans are using law enforcement to target their opponents. These actions are being taken despite absolutely no evidence of wrong doing, and despite that none of the investigations have ever turned up any evidence of wrong doing.Furthermore, these investigations remain open to tie up the opponent's resources and to hamper their fund raising efforts.So can we quit pretending that the Republicans believe in democracy, rule of law, or Constitutional limitations on their power?

From the New York Times: North Carolina’s Legislative Maps Are Thrown Out by State Court PanelA court in North Carolina has thrown out highly gerrymandered maps for the state's legislative districts.The court's ruling was that it violated the state's constitution that "all elections shall be free". What makes this interesting is that most states have provisions in their constitutions that demand free and fair elections, and, in fact, the courts in Pennsylvania used its own constitution to strike down a gerrymandered map for its Congressional districts.What surprised me is that I would have assumed that judges in North Carolina were either highly partisan appointees or elected in gerrymandered judicial districts. I looked up the North Carolina constitution, and it appears that this panel was in the appellate court which is elected statewide.I guess the lesson is that, at least in some cases, if the majority wants fair elections then they can sometimes get it. At least if they can act before the voter suppression really takes off.We'll see if the Federalist Society's John Roberts has the intellectual honesty to allow this.By the way, this decision was unanimous from a three judge panel that included a Republican.Edited by Chiroptera, : Typos.

From the New York Times: The Battle Over the Files of a Gerrymandering MastermindThe party of crooked lying cheats, the Republicans, are trying desperately to either have Hofeller's thumb drives and other records returned to them or destroyed, claiming that there's sensitive proprietory information.Ha! I bet. So far just a couple of released documents have shown that the Republicans deliberately engaged in extreme gerrymandering, used race in determining district boundaries contrary to law, and deliberately intended to use the citizenship question to suppress the census count. And there's thousands of documents to go!I am a little curious about what the Party of Anti-democracy is so worried about, though. Most decent, aware folk know the Republicans are scumbags while the cultists are going to stick with them no matter what.Edited by Chiroptera, : Typo in subtitle.Edited by Chiroptera, : Why do I bother to press "preview" when I don't even preview?

George Orwell: I'm not really responding to your post as much as using it as an excuse to bring up what Trump rallies remind me of.

From the New York Times: State Court Bars Using North Carolina House Map in 2020 ElectionsA state court ruled the state's gerrymandered Congressional district map violates the state's constitution. The North Carolina constitution has a clause protecting the right to vote and the courts are finding that it was not intended to be a mere formality. Those legislature maps were originally also heavily gerrymandered but were ruled unconstitutional by the same state court.

From the Guardian: Republicans tried to rig the vote in Michigan — but ‘political novices’ just defeated themMichigan voters have enacted a non-partisan apportionment process to end Republican extreme gerrymandering. By the way, the Republicans never hid their intent for permanent rule: like cartoon villians they, again, bragged about their efforts. And, of course, the party of anti-democracy is fighting the law in court, under the claim that the non-partisan requirements discriminate against people based on political affiliation. (For people who don't get the joke, we are talking about the defense of gerrymandered districts intended to discriminate against political affiliation!)One would hope this effort to protect democracy survives a Supreme Court challenge: However, I'm with Kagan in doubting the conservatives' sincerity when they pointed toward voter initiatives as a possible solution to gerrymandering.I'm still curious, though, about what our local conservatives feel about the issue.Do they think that gerrymandering is fair and not a big deal?Do they think that it's a violation of democratic norms but the Republicans have no choice but to do what it takes to shutdown the "Dem scum"?Or will they oppose such clear anti-democratic moves even when it's the Republicans that engage in them?

From the New York Times: A Census Whodunit: Why Was the Citizenship Question Added?As a reminder: The Trump administration tried to add to next year's census a question asking whether the respondents were citizens. The reasons were obvious: such a question would have caused many legal immigrant residents to avoid the census, suppressing their numbers, and there are plans among Republican dominated states to base apportionment on citizens rather than residents. The effect would be to decrease Democratic representation.The administration denied this was the reason, insisting that it was to help enforce the Voters' Rights Act. When the issue was brought before the Supreme Court, the Court ruled that the administration wasn't being entirely honest and sent the case back to be re argued in the lower courts. Rather than admit that they are partisan hacks trying to cement into place permanent Republican rule, the administration dropped the question.Recently released documents provide evidence that the reasons to add the citizenship question to the census was political, and that the Trump administration's were dishonest in their denials. The administration claims it was an oversight that they hadn't disclosed these documents before, but... I felt at the time that Roberts ruled against the census question because he didn't like being lied to. If and when this question reaches the Supreme Court again, my prediction is that if the administration is honest and admits, "Yeah, we want to exclude people to our benefit because fuck those guys," the Roberts court will rule, "Alrighty, then."Edited by Chiroptera, : Typo in the subtitle.

From the Guardian: Kentucky's new Democratic governor allows 140,000 ex-felons to voteKentucky has joined a number of states in reconsidering their ban on felons voting. Governor Beshear has signed an executive order that will restore the voting rights to those convicted of non-violent felonies after they have completed their sentences.

From the Guardian: For America’s black politicians, winning an election can lead to jailThat our local white nationalist is threatening to impeach future Democratic Presidents for no legitimate cause on another thread should no longer be a surprise for people who believe in democracy. This article from the Guardian notes several instances where Republicans use technicalities to overturn the voters' decisions and in some cases even prosecuting their opponents. Interestingly, the victims are predominantly black. Some will seek it, but most of the former majority will seem to cover for it.

That's unfortunate. The article gives some of the details about the technicalities used by the Republicans to justify their shenanigans; might give your side some arguments to argue against the author's conclusions. So this is a case where "two wrongs" DO "make a right"? What if, instead of "saving our republic" it just creates a situation where from now on every single President gets impeached until the Republic finally collapses?

More Republican contempt for democracy from the Guardian: Texas closes hundreds of polling sites, making it harder for minorities to voteThe article points out that the closures can't be attributed to a single policy, but it is clear that the closures are lowering voter participation and that it is affecting minority groups more.

From the Guardian: Kentucky Republicans quietly tighten voter restrictions as US focuses on Covid-19Many states are trying to figure out how to allow people to exercise their right (some would call ita duty) to vote while coping with coronavirus. One idea that is getting traction is to make it easier to vote by mail. But then we have this: Governor Beshear is expected to veto the bill, but according to the article his veto can be overridden by a majority of the legislature.

From the Nation: The Coronavirus Doesn’t Have to Disrupt Our ElectionsTitled: Virus-proof elections in the print editionJohn Nichols makes the case for all states to switch to vote-by-mail for the November elections. Although we all hope the worst of the crisis will be past by November, there is the significant possibility (maybe even probable) that voter turnout will be low because of the pandemic. Washington state hold its elections by mail.