Rolling Stone: How the GOP Rigs Elections

[CousinIT]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/how-the-gop-rigs-elections-121907/

With a combination of gerrymandering, voter-ID laws and dark money, Republicans have tipped the political scales in their favor. Will it be enough to keep Democrats from claiming victory in 2018?

Two houses to the south, Wanggaard’s state Senate district – the 21st – abruptly cuts off to exclude the rest of the largely Democratic neighborhood. This used to be one of the state’s most competitive Senate districts, encompassing all of rectangular-shaped Racine County, a 50/50 mix of urban and rural communities in southeast Wisconsin. But since the GOP gained control of the state’s government in 2010, and redrew the legislative maps, the district is now shaped like a horseshoe, pulling in the Republican countryside of Racine and Kenosha counties while excluding heavily Democratic areas – except for the block where Wanggaard lives. “It’s a prime example of how a party in power chose a district for their guy,” says John Lehman, a Democrat who represented the 21st before Wanggaard.

To say that Republicans are facing a toxic political environment heading into the 2018 midterm elections would be a massive understatement. Donald Trump is the most unpopular president at this stage of his term in modern American history. Just three in 10 Americans have a favorable view of the Republican Party, and Democratic voters’ enthusiasm to vote in 2018 tops Republican voters’ by 17 points. But because of sophisticated gerrymandering, Republicans who should be vulnerable, like Wanggaard, have been seen as untouchable. “It’s more challenging than it should be because of the way the districts are drawn,” says Jenni Dye, who works for Democrats in Wisconsin’s state Senate. Wanggaard is among 11 Republican state senators up for re-election in 2018, but no one has stepped forward to challenge him yet.

The gerrymandering in Wisconsin, which experts call among the most extreme in U.S. history, is but one part of Republicans’ stealth plan to stay in office. Since Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican Legislature took power, they’ve also introduced some of the country’s harshest voting restrictions, passing laws that make it harder for Democratic-leaning constituencies to register to vote and cast ballots. At the same time, the state has become the “Wild West of dark money,” according to Lisa Graves, a senior fellow at the Madison-based Center for Media and Democracy, with Republican politicians like Walker raising unprecedented sums from billionaire donors to finance their campaigns.

“All three of these things have to be seen as part of a whole,” says Eric Holder, Barack Obama’s attorney general, who founded the National Democratic Redistricting Committee in 2016 to challenge Republican gerrymandering efforts. “Unregulated dark money combined with these voter-ID laws combined with gerrymandering is inconsistent with how our nation’s system is supposed to be set up. American citizens ought to be concerned about the state of our democracy. We could end up with a system where a well-financed minority that has views inconsistent with the vast majority of the American people runs this country.”

More immediately, a beleaguered Republican Party tainted by Trump could still retain majorities in 2018 and 2020. “It’s not a level playing field,” says Tom Perez, head of the Democratic National Committee. “There are millions of people whose votes effectively don’t count.” And as a measure of the GOP’s ability to maintain a political advantage, despite widespread public opposition to its policies, look no further than Wisconsin. “We’ve been under a counterrevolution here for the past six years,” says Matt Rothschild, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks the influence of money in politics. “Walker has urged other states to follow his model. Reactionary politics is a big Wisconsin export now.”

[Mike Nelson]

1. Excellent article...

… this is why the clear winner did not become the elected President. It's also why the majority of people voted for Democrats in Congress - yet Republicans are in control.

[beachbum bob]

3. the majority of blue states even with democratic congress people and senators can remain minority

when their vote tally's are much greater than those out of redstates. Overall vote tallies mean nothing as its where the votes are actually cast....... Purging voters is a known issue and is done regularly by locals to clean outdated voters off the rolls. People who moved, died, etc. We know this happens and its up to each individual to check prior to the election to be sure they are still registered.

I am not defending what happens, but WE KNOW WHAT HAPPENS so we have to adjust to it. That goes with proper voter IDs, WE KNOW THE RULES, so lets be sure the voters have proper identifications.

the real secret to republicans winning is too many democrats are just plain lazy to get off their asses to lift a finger OR to vote. Thats what we need to address/ Russian bot attacks were designed to create apathy and division among democrats

we need to stop proving republicans right

[Botany]

2. 16 million voters were purged before the vote in 2016 / EES voting machines had remote access

https://thinkprogress.org/states-purged-16-million-voters-from-the-rolls-before-the-2016-election-1c5688dcaad7/

https://theoutline.com/post/5451/ess-voting-machine-hacking-pcanywhere?zd=1&zi=pd6znvmy

[FakeNoose]

4. Don't forget about 100 million that didn't care enough to vote

THAT needs to change immediately!



Thanks for posting this awesome article. I've always enjoyed the Rolling Stone's political commentaries, even if I don't completely agree with them. Most are right on the money though.

[certainot]

5. any analysis with no mention of talk radio is half assed - and most analysis is

studying republican success the last 30 years without factoring talk radio is worse than useless because it usually ends up ascribing blame to SYMPTOMS like money in politics, voter suppression, etc - decisions an issues won by republicans who would be selling usedd plastic buckets out of pickups or saving corporations from lawsuits if it wasn't for the incredible stupidity of democrats/liberals/left ignoring talk radio

dems might as well be studying fish without water

[olegramps]

6. Absolutely. It is the most powerful weapon in the Republican arsensal.

Reagan accomplished the most important aspect of their assault on the election system when he repealed the Fairness Doctrine and, perhaps even more importantly, allowed for multiple station ownership. The Republican millionaires quickly bought up the mom and pop outlets and turned the system into one of the most effective propaganda machines outside of the communist regimes. Along with FOX News, it is not only an important aspect of the current situation, it is the very key to the Republicans control of the elections.

[DemocracyMouse]

7. You are SO correct about Reagan's abandoment of the fairness doctrine...

and the laws allowing consolidation of talk radio outlets. If there were ever a monopoly practice Teddy Roosevelt and Howard Taft would have despised...

We live in vastly ugly times.

TELL EVERYONE TO CHECK THEIR VOTING REGISTRATION.

If Dems get any kind of majority in the future, the FIRST thing they should pass is a new voting rights act – folding in everything we've learned since the first one.

[dchill]

8. K&R.