Short of voters, Republicans gerrymander their way back to power
Short of voters, Republicans gerrymander their way back to power
By David Horsey
February 6, 2013, 5:00 a.m.
Republicans have become a devious party that believes if you cannot win by following fair rules, there is nothing wrong with rigging the game. To their constitutionally endorsed advantage in the Senate, they have added a manipulated advantage in the House of Representatives that some Republicans would like to leverage into an advantage in presidential elections.
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This push was rewarded in the 2012 election. Sam Wang, an associate professor at Princeton University, has done a thorough analysis of election results that was published in Sunday’s New York Times. Wang found that even though Democrats received 1.4 million more votes than Republicans in House races, the GOP won 234 seats to the Democrats’ 201. How did this happen?
Wang identified 10 states in which representation has been skewed by gerrymandering. In Illinois and Texas this has created a mild bias toward Democratic candidates; in Indiana there is a mild bias toward Republicans. In Arizona, the distortion in favor of Democrats is bigger. Most significantly, though, in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, Republican candidates have been given a huge advantage by legislative redistricting driven to favor the GOP.
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If this continues the USA should stop touting itself as some beacon of democracy that can serve as an example for nations overseas. We are just one banana republic out of many if this becomes a permanent state of affairs.