How the GOP Rigs Elections ... gerrymandering, voter-ID laws, and dark money [View all]

[L. Coyote]

How the GOP Rigs Elections --- https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gop-rigs-elections-gerrymandering-voter-id-laws-dark-money-w515664
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?
By Ari Berman

On a quiet, tree-lined street in Racine, Wisconsin, in a neighborhood known as the Danish Village for its Scandinavian ancestry, sits a two-story white house with a large American flag hanging from the porch and a pro-police "We Back the Badge" sign in the yard. It's the home of Republican state Sen. Van Wanggaard, a 65-year-old former cop whose blond hair resembles that of Dennis the Menace.

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 .................