In Michigan - Democrats Get More Votes, Lose Anyway

[corkhead]

In the 14 congressional races, Democrats received more votes than Republicans:
Democrats: 1,515,716 (49.15%)
Republicans: 1,463,854 (47.47%)
Democrats got more votes, but Republicans were victorious (again) in 9 of the 14 races. They accomplished that by stuffing as many Democrats into as few districts as possible. The average margin of victory for winning Dems was 86,410; the average GOP win margin was 42,243.

Read it and weep. Much more at the link


http://www.michigancurmudgeon.com/2014/11/democrats-get-more-votes-lose-anyway.html

[Wounded Bear]

1. Gerrymandering at its finest...

[Fla Dem]

13. Yup, and as long as we keep putting Rethugs into the state legislatures and Governor seats

the gerrymandering will continue. The next US census is 2020, and the states will have a chance to realign their districts once again. If the state governments are still Republican controlled, we live with it for another 10 years. All politics are local. The worse things being done to our citizenry is by local and state governments.

[RKP5637]

2. It is really crooked and a glaring failure of democracy. Whichever party does it, it should

be illegal and stepped.

[Botany]

3. The 2014 election was much dirtier then people know.

Last edited Sat Nov 8, 2014, 11:19 AM - Edit history (1)

Republicans win by cheating and the democrats and our DoJ lets them get away with it.

[heaven05]

4. that's my feeling also

how can this be allowed by OUR party and the dept of justice?

[Dustlawyer]

5. It's the $$$$$!

[George II]

7. Are you saying that Democrats allowed themselves to be defeated because of MONEY????

[Dustlawyer]

8. Democrats won't talk about getting the money out of politics or financial crimes because

it would negatively impact their big donors. They have areas that are off limits for fear of offending their sponsors, and I am not talking about us!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. Easy. Dems pretend all things are equal and accept defeat too easily.

[Fred Sanders]

6. Incredible distortion of democracy, both sides do it, both sides are fucking over democracy.

And since the VPA is basically a historical artifact, minority representation can still easily occur using normalized districts, probably even more so than this bull shit.

Check out the fucked up congressional map for liberal Austin, TX that gets one out of six representatives because rural Republicans hundreds of miles away are swallowed up by boundaries that look like a dual star system where one star sucks up the other. Guess who is the suckee and who the sucker? Sucking stars and sucking laws.

Canada has normalized districts based on geography and population only, they have plenty of minority politicians. The old arguments for this fucked up system fail the smell and logic and reality tests.

[heaven05]

9. +10

[fasttense]

16. I see very little gerrymandering and voter suppression by Dems

So no, both parties are NOT to blame equally. Saying they are both equally distorting democracy is just a false equivalency.

Dems don't do voter suppression and the computer rigging of voting machines is practically 100% RepubliCON.

What Dems do is allow the RepubliCONS to gerrymander, all they want. Dems ignore obvious cases of rigged voting machines and they sit back and let RepubliCON suppress, and suppress, and suppress.

[lobodons]

10. Gov. Snyder won by 4%

I get what you're saying (Gerrymandering is a huge huge problem combined with Money and Citizens United), but still (R) Gov. Snyder won by 4% statewide.

[corkhead]

12. I believe that Democratic voting was supressed in the districts owned by Repubs

because of a lack of choices down ticket and where there were choices, they were severely outspent and had ZERO percent chance of winning.


Also Michigan has a tendency to split their ticket which can be exemplified by the choice of Snyder and the only non-incumbent Democratic Senator elected in the entire country, Gary Peters.

[roamer65]

21. Dick won by stealing some Democratic ideas.

For instance, he did not fight Medicaid expansion and actually he toured the state lobbying for it. I personally can't stand the guy, but he took a tack to left a bit when Walker got recalled in Wisconsin and that is what saved his ass in Michigan.

The House districts in MI are extremely gerrymandered, because we have had a Rethug legislature for the past two redistrictings. If we have a Democratic governor and legislature in 2021 that will change.

[turbinetree]

11. Michigan

First, not all Michiganders approve of this gerrymandering, but to basically allow this to happen when given the opportunity to prevent this fiasco says a lot, you kept voting republican and republican like people in your house with the catchy phrase lower taxes and other nonsense.
Your dictator governor (a hedge fund manager) will now go forward and let certain cities be sold to the highest for profit company under his manager cronies he places without a vote, and you are now completely on your way to be like Kansas and the other 27 republican controlled states in this country, based on voter disentrancement and gerrymandering.
You have Union members that vote republicans , which is against there own interest, what does that really say, your contracts become worthless and then members blame the Unions, the greedy have succeeded in there corruption, but will blame a democratically voted in membership and its leaders is amazing.
People died to let you vote and you will now have one of the worst voting laws in the country based on a fraud and a lie by perpetuated by neocon right wing tea party republican, keep drinking the kool aid.
Your state spent more money on a new stadium for both the college and professional teams, and then to top it all off it was done under a threat, that teams would move, and a college's that pays its football coach's over 6 figures in salary, that's really great, because the professional teams used tax payer dollars for owners who get a tax break you subsidized to build stadiums and you get NO say in
( ownership, prices, stocks, ect... except 200 dollar tickets, 10 dollar beers, and maybe 9.00 an hour seasonal jobs) but not the publically owned in lets say like in Green Bay, and your college and universities cost more for tuition in 4 years for some of your students than some third world countries, for a student to get a degree, and you mortgage your home to get what a better life for your children and community.

[AwakeAtLast]

15. THIS is why people stay home.

Not condoning it, but when you are shown the futility, it can wear you down.

[former9thward]

17. It was not gerrymandering.

It was the Voting Rights Act. The VRA demands majority minority districts. In other words districts that are at least 70% minority to ensure the election of minority representatives. The ONLY way that happens is to cram Democrats into whatever oddly shaped districts will get that result. The VRA, while increasing minority representation in Congress, has been a godsend to Republicans as a result.

[corkhead]

18. good intentioned Gerrymandering is still Gerrymandering and the damage to democracy is the same.

[former9thward]

19. True, but as long as the VRA remains the law it is the law.

And I don't see that law being changed by anyone.

[jimlup]

20. Michigan Legistlator is now moving to apportion the states electoral votes

in the same way - by congressional districts.

If that law had been in effect in 2012 Mitt Romney would have won most of Michigans electoral votes though the Obama won the state by a 5% margin.

These fuckers are all about gerrymandering and they are even to the point of being able to boldly assert it without anyone having the courage to call them on it.

[Bill USA]

22. Excellent post! Wonder how it was in other states where GOP gerrymandered the CDs? we must get rid

of gerrymandering period. IT's threatening what little democracy we have left.


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