NOTE: Pennsylvania is one of the states studied.
By Alex Tausanovitch and Danielle Root July 8, 2020, 9:03 am
Getty/Scott OlsonVoters wearing masks cast their ballots at an outdoor voting booth in Racine, Wisconsin—a measure to make the voting process safer for residents and election officials amid the COVID-19 pandemic, April 2020.
Every 10 years, each U.S. state redraws its electoral districts—lines on a map that have serious real-world consequences. If districts are drawn fairly, then the public can elect representatives who reflect the views of the population as a whole. But if the district lines are manipulated through partisan gerrymandering, then the legislature will be untethered from the popular will.
The Center for American Progress has published a series of reports that analyze how partisan gerrymandering affects issues from gun violence prevention to access to health insurance to policies that are important to children and families.1 This issue brief explores how gerrymandering affects voting rights. In recent years, gerrymandered legislatures have pioneered other tools to stay in power, including making it harder for voters who oppose them to cast a ballot. It is a power grab on top of a power grab.
Fortunately, both of these interrelated problems—gerrymandering and limits on the right to vote—are fixable. Indeed, citizens across the country seem to be fired up about reform.2 This could be the political moment to solve these problems and get American democracy back on track.
This issue brief examines the only four states where, after the 2018 elections, the party that won a majority of state legislative seats received only a minority of the total statewide vote: North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Because of gerrymandering, these four states dramatically failed a basic test of democracy—votes did not translate into political power. To make matters worse, gerrymandering has since gone hand in hand with increased restrictions on voting in each of these states. In other words, legislative majorities that received a minority of the votes have used their unearned power to make it harder for citizens to cast a ballot, further distancing themselves from accountability at the ballot box. CAP’s solution to this problem is highlighted in the final section of this issue brief: empowering independent commissions to draw voter-determined districts that reflect the will of the people.
Read more at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2020/07/08/487426/partisan-gerrymandering-limits-voting-rights/.
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