The undermining of democracy across the Americas, especially in the U.S. and Peru, has been occurring via attempts to use laws solely for political gain.
Who will be represented in Congress?
iconeer/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images
To overhaul an election redistricting process tainted by gerrymandering, Michigan has adopted a governance mechanism prominent 2,500 years ago in ancient Athens, the birthplace of democracy.
A small sliver of a congressional district in Pennsylvania crossed four counties, on a map that was ruled to be a partisan gerrymandering plan.
AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
Robin E. Best, Binghamton University, State University of New York e Steve B. Lem, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
When voters in November pick among the candidates for state legislatures, they are choosing the people who will make the new electoral maps for congressional elections.
Are you trapped in an echo chamber?
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Conflict made its way to the Supreme Court this past session with two cases – one about the census, the other about gerrymandering. A court scholar says the two cases are intimately connected.
The Supreme Court is empty days before the justices vote to on the U.S. gerrymandering case.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
The Supreme Court has issued what’s likely to be its final word on partisan gerrymandering, saying it’s a political issue, not a legal one. That means reform lies in the hands of voters.
People waited outside the Supreme Court in 2013 to listen to the Shelby County, Ala. v. Holder voting rights case.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
When no one in Mississippi wins a majority of votes in an election, the legislature chooses the winner. This has led to white men winning over and over.
Demonstrators protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court, in Washington, on March 26.
REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
The US public is more aware than ever of partisan gerrymandering, and they’re pushing local governments to make reforms.
Activists at the Supreme Court opposed to partisan gerrymandering hold up representations of congressional districts from North Carolina, left, and Maryland, right.
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Manil Suri, University of Maryland, Baltimore County e Karen Saxe, Macalester College
Supreme Court justices have previously called statistical methods of measuring partisan gerrymandering ‘sociological gobbledygook’ and ‘a bunch of baloney.’
Idaho State Capitol in Boise, Idaho.
AP Photo/Kimberlee Kruesi, File
The majority of US state legislatures are controlled by Republicans because legislative districts are drawn to favor them. Voters are catching on, but change will be slow.
Last March, demonstrators rallied in front of the Supreme Court before oral arguments on Benisek v. Lamone, a redistricting case.
REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
Many states are arguing over how to draw district lines. But drawing legislative district lines is an exercise in tradeoffs.
Democrat Beto O'Rourke won 63 percent of Latino voters in Texas, exit polls show, and Latinos seem to have voted in record numbers. But it wasn’t enough to win.
AP Photo/Eric Gay
Record high Latino participation shows this growing voter segment will turn out for parties and politicians who tackle issues they care about. That’s a big lesson for 2020 – and not just for Dems.
Much is hanging on the outcome of the US mid-term elections - and much of it is unpredictable.
Wes Mountain/The Conversation
One of the main reasons polarization in the US is on the rise – the way congressional seats are drawn to favor parties – isn’t going away anytime soon.
Civil rights organizations have sued Georgia’s Republican secretary of state for failing to register 53,000 new voters, most of them black.
Reuters/Christopher Aluka Berry
Georgia’s secretary of state has stalled voter registrations and accused Democrats of hacking. His tactics recall past efforts in the South to suppress black votes, from poll taxes to literacy tests
Ontario Premier Doug Ford makes an announcement at Queen’s Park on Friday, July 27, 2018 about significantly reducing the number of Toronto city councillors just months before the fall municipal election.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
Doug Ford is invoking the province’s broad powers over municipalities in a manner that tramples on fundamental principles of fairness, reasonable notice and the right to effective representation.
Gin Lane, a scene of urban desolation with gin-crazed Londoners; a woman lets her child fall to its death and an emaciated ballad-seller.
William Hogarth
When the U.S. broke away from the “mother country,” the dream was to let the common good overruled selfish and private interests. Yet the federal government is arranged so this can never occur.
Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy, Associate Research Professor, Political Science, Co-host of Democracy Works Podcast, Penn State