More and more, we hear the term gerrymandering and still there can be confusion as to what it is and why we should care. The quickest explanation is [that] gerrymandering allows politicians to draw their own district lines. This means they pick who votes for them, instead of us picking who represents us.
This causes a myriad of problems. It encourages a lack of cooperation and increases the partisan divide because incumbents have almost guaranteed their re-election based on partisan district lines. Millions of votes across the nation go unheard. Power is ripped away from the people and placed even more into the hands of politicians.
Gerrymandering lawsuits are expensive, and you know us taxpayers pay this in the end. This is a nonpartisan issue: Four times as many North Carolinians are against gerrymandering than are for it.
What can you do? Call the N.C. House Chairman of [the Committee on Rules, Calendar and Operations], Rep. [David] Lewis [(R-Harnett)], at 919-715-3015 and request he allow HB 200, a nonpartisan redistricting bill, to go to committee. Call your N.C. House rep asking them to support HB 200. For more take action ideas regarding gerrymandering, please join http://tinyurl.com/j448nhc or go to http://commoncausenc.org.
— Kris Kramer
Black Mountain
The GOP’s gerrymandering here in NC is VOTER FRAUD on an epic scale -legalized and institutionalized of course. The Electoral College is more of the same (and was created so that southern slave-holding states would have an out-sized and [therefore] disproportionate influence on the outcome of presidential elections). All of it….. anti-democratic as all get out…. and how the fascists seized power here in NC and nationally culminating with the election of TheRump. Needs to end, now.
Well now…… many, many of our Democrats friends who post on this website will utterly insist that VOTER FRAUD does not exist. Over and over they have said so.
So, which is it? It does exist on many levels? Or, only in the ways that you say it does?
*yawn*
What civil person would not consider a reply of “yawn” to be rude? Not to mention juvenile and providing nothing of value. How in a reasonable world it passes the ‘civility test’, I cannot fathom. Perhaps bias is involved on the part of the moderator today.
For the record, the word hysterical describes a behavior. And it is apt.
*politely stifled*
Starting from the rarest to the least rare:
– in-person voter impersonation (a handful of proven cases in a billion votes cast)
– double-voting in different precincts or states
– absentee fraud (former Colorado GOP chairman / AM talk jock got charged with that this week)
– voter suppression
More to the point: given that GIS tools exist to draw district maps to fit a particular voter profile down to the block level, and those tools aren’t going away, the only way forward is to take mapping out of partisan hands.
In practice, the NC gerrymander at state and federal level makes representatives even less responsive to their constituents because they fear primary challenges more than they do the general election.
Of course, gerrymandering has it’s humorous side, too. The attempt to create a GOP majority on Buncombe County’s Board of Commissioners in 2012, for example. The Republicans botched the job using those GIS tools, and instead of extending the ‘liberal ghetto’ of Asheville out to encircle Warren Wilson College, they accidentally cut that block of liberal voters in half. They left hundreds of angry Democratic-leaning voters in the district they hoped would be “safe” for a GOP candidate. It was like kicking a hornets nest! Warren Wilson students and staff voted in numbers never seen before. Ha! Once the dust settled, the Democrats kept control of the Commission by about 15 votes.
But this also shows exactly why the LTE writer is correct – we need fair, nonpartisan redistricting.