Carl Able: Partisan Gerrymandering: Disenfranchising voters and skewing representation
While both parties have orchestrated gerrymandering efforts, actions taken by Republican-controlled states following the 2010 census have proven to be far more effective at increasing their hold on power than those of the Democrats.
According to a report from the Brennan Center for Justice, Republicans derived a net benefit of 16-17 congressional seats in the 26 states that account for 85 percent of the congressional districts between 2012 and 2018. Court-ordered changes to electoral maps drawn in states where districts were drawn under sole Republican control have helped to reduce the bias, though it has not eliminated it.
A Case Study of Gerrymandering in North Carolina
The North Carolina Supreme Court recently ruled that its previous decision that the partisan gerrymandered map was unconstitutional was a mistake and that they had no standing to place restrictions on how the state's electoral map is drawn. This ruling opens the door for the US Supreme Court to throw out the case currently pending at its level and allows for the North Carolina map to be drawn in a manner that will potentially give Republicans three more seats in the US House of Representatives.
The extent to which gerrymandering has become a problem can be seen clearly in how the representation falls out along party lines in the state of North Carolina. As of 2022, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by 5% or 351,210 voters. Contrasting this difference is the fact that in the US House of Representatives, of the 13 seats allocated to the state of North Carolina, 62% or 8 seats belong to Republicans while 38% or 5 seats belong to Democrats. With the new ruling from that state’s supreme court, that number will likely change in 2024, placing 85% or 11 seats in Republican control and the remaining 15% or 2 seats in Democrat control.
This overrepresentation of Republicans disenfranchises the voters of the state of North Carolina and leads to a situation in which the true interests of the voters of North Carolina will not be represented.
The Impact of Partisan Gerrymandering on Representation in Congress
This is a fact that exists nationwide thanks to the partisan gerrymandering of electoral maps in nearly every state. According to the website World Population Review, the population of registered voters in the United States is 215,534,588. Of that, approximately 58% or 127,553,192 reside in states that report on numbers of registered voters by party. The other 41% reside in states that do not require voters to report party affiliation when registering to vote. These numbers are important in determining the voter population by party affiliation, unfortunately we cannot account for the 41% of voters whose affiliation is unreported by their states, however, the picture that the 58% of voters whose affiliation is reported demonstrates that nationwide.
Republican voters account for 29% of the known population of voters with reported party affiliation, Democrats account for 38% and other affiliations account for 33%. Taking that information and combining it with the party affiliation of Congress: House of Representatives: 51% Republican and 49% Democrat; Senate: 49% Republican, 48% Democrat, and 3% Independent. We can clearly see that the representation in the legislative branch does not correlate with the actual voter population broken down by party.
The Threat of Gerrymandering to American Democracy
Now, I understand that the numbers above are not all encompassing and not every American votes based on party affiliation, I am one of those people. However, the imbalance is much higher than it would be if gerrymandering was not present in the American electoral system. Although the Republican party has proven to be far more adept at using it, gerrymandering is a tool both parties have used historically to subvert the American democratic process and ensure a firm grip on power regardless of the actual make-up of the American voting population. It is a tool that poses a very real threat to American democracy by disenfranchising large swaths of American voters and destroying American trust in the electoral system.
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