Voters won in Michigan this year -- and fair maps made the difference

[marmar]

Voters won in Michigan this year — and fair maps made the difference
A grassroots movement in our state ended gerrymandering — and the results are clear. Your state can do it too

By NANCY WANG - DAVID DALEY
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 3, 2022 8:00AM (EST)


(Salon) It's been decades since we could say this. But in Michigan this November, voters, not politicians, were the real winners on Election Day.

That sounds pretty basic. Elections are supposed to be about determining the will of the people, and the side with the most support should win. Our elections for Congress and Michigan's state legislature, however, have not worked that way for a long time.

What changed this year? Fair maps made all the difference. In 2018, Michigan voters amended the state constitution and put an end to gerrymandering. And then Michiganders — and the entire nation — got to see what happens when district lines are drawn by an independent citizens commission, and not wired by politicians to select winners and losers before anyone casts a vote.

Here's what happened: When 49.9 percent of Michigan voters backed Democrats for Congress, and 47.6 percent preferred Republicans, this year's outcome turned out as fairly as possible. Democrats won seven seats and Republicans took six, exactly in line with each party's share of the vote. Compare that to a decade ago, in 2012, when Democratic candidates won some 240,000 more votes, but Republicans controlled nine of the 14 seats.

The independent commission delivered a fair outcome for the state legislature as well. Democrats narrowly won more votes for both the state House and the state Senate and won narrow majorities in each — 20-18 in the Senate, 56-54 in the House. That connection between the popular will and political control had been severed over the last decade; Democrats, for example, won more votes for the state House in 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2020, but on tilted maps never managed to translate a majority of votes into a majority of seats. .....................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2022/12/03/won-in-michigan-this-year--and-fair-redistricting-was-the-reason/

[Takket]

1. this should be the template every state should be using......

there are far too many places where voting doesn't matter. Between gerrymandering and the electoral college minority rule is destroying our country and way of life, but Michigan and Pennsylvania shows we can fight back.

[gibraltar72]

2. Not enough for me but it sure helped statewide.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. Gerrymandering abridges the rights of voters and thus is unconstitutional.

Our current Extreme Court has failed to uphold the law of the land.

[Thunderbeast]

4. In New York, an independent process had the opposite impact.

Original maps, drafted by a Democratic legislature were successfully challenged in court. New maps were supervised by the courts resulting in a more even split in representation.

In Oregon, re-districing (including a new 6th district) resulted in a 4-2 split replacing a 4-1 split. While I hoped for the new maps to yield a new blue congresscritter, a 4-2 split is a closer represention of the state as a whole.

The flipped district ousted an incumbant moderate Democrat in favor of a more progressive candidate who lost in the general. The re-drawn district was probably a better fit for incumbant Kurt Schrader who won the endorsement of Joe Biden in the primary.