https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017...P-have-cheated-their-way-to-winning-elections
How the GOP have cheated their way to winning elections
By Lynnedy *
Sunday Jan 22, 2017 · 1:33 AM PST
They hatched a plan. They put it to work behind closed doors. They cheated. They lied. They broke laws. They succeeded. They changed the laws so they work for their interests.*
We failed*because we stood by and didn’t sound the alarm and stop them sooner.
When did it happen?
When the hanging chads threatened the election in 2000, the Republican Governor, Jeb Bush, who promised his brother, George, that he would give him the state of Florida, did just that. I remember hearing George say those words, in the middle of the election night, when the news media said Gore was projected to win and George jerked his head up and said, “No, Jeb promised me Florida.”
Jeb came through having his*Secretary of State discard countless Democratic ballots and George W. Bush was declared the winner. There was confusion. The recount*showed that Gore had won the popular vote, but the Supreme Court, run by the GOP at the time, stepped in and declared George the winner. *It was clear the GOP was set on a course that has systematically worked to establish a guaranteed dominance in Congress by the Republicans.*
I wrote a diary back in March 2016 fearing that*Republicans could Win*in Nov 2016*because of the gerrymandering and ‘cheating’ going on. Unfortunately, everything I feared came true. The areas of the country which were gerrymandered and had voter suppression were areas that shifted unexpectedly to the GOP.
Karl Rove, along with his cronies and the money of the billionaire class (Koch Bros and friends), devised a plan to create gerrymandered districts that would guarantee certain seats would always be GOP seats.*
Gerrymandered District in North Carolina — lumped almost all Democrats into one district
*
The rural and less densely populated areas surrounding the Democratic zones were broken up into more districts giving the Republicans more seats and ensuring that they would have guaranteed representation, despite greater numbers voting for Democrats. A Democratic representative would represent greater numbers of people spread over a larger distance. A GOP representative would represent few people over a smaller distance. These smaller districts were dominantly Republicans, hence their*representation in Congress was guaranteed.
Over the course of the next 16 years, they systematically worked to suppress the vote and squeeze the Democrats into districts that were gerrymandering people of color and the urban poor into a meshed group, while giving extra seats to the GOP.*
In addition, they worked to turn back the Voter Act of 1965. In 2013 the Supreme Court struck down the requirement for ‘pre-clearance’ by any state to have a restriction made on voting.*
The Supreme Court struck down Section 4(b) as unconstitutional in its June 25, 2013 ruling.[2][20]*The*majority opinion*was delivered by Chief Justice*John Roberts*joined by Justices*Antonin Scalia,*Anthony Kennedy,*Clarence Thomas, and*Samuel Alito.[21][22][23]*The Court held that Section 4(b) exceeded Congress's power to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, reasoning that the coverage formula conflicts with the constitutional principles of*federalism*and "equal sovereignty of the states" because the disparate treatment of the states is "based on 40 year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day" and thus is not responsive to current needs.[2][3]*The Court expressed that Congress cannot subject a state to preclearance based simply on past discrimination. It noted that since the coverage formula was last modified in 1975, the country "has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions".[2][24][25]*The Court declared that the Fifteenth Amendment "commands that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of race or color, and it gives Congress the power to enforce that command. The Amendment is not designed to punish for the past; its purpose is to ensure a better future."[26]
Roberts wrote that the Act was immensely successful "at redressing racial discrimination and integrating the voting process” and noted that the USA has made great progress thanks to the Act.[21]
Wikipedia*Shelby County Vs Holder
States across the South immediately began enacting voter restriction laws. Many of these have been blatant and poorly worded, but they moved so quickly and they were implemented so fast, they had an effect on the election results in 2014. More Republicans were elected to positions, despite more Democrats turning out to the polls and voting. Of course, the GOP kept bragging how they had outdone the DEMs because they had a mandate, but really, they had simply stacked the deck and cheated. We still were not seeing it as what it was, thinking they were winning fair and square. Now*with more positions that were untouchable, they could enact more laws and do more damage to the work of President Obama.*
The Tea Party became obstreperous and even more hateful. They were such a small number, representing such a small number of people, but their districts were all guaranteed. They didn’t have to worry about ‘running for re-election’ like some of the others. John Boehner lost control because of the Rove experiment going wild.
President Obama --the one who was always hopeful and always wanted to work together with people had tried, when he first was elected, to give the ‘other side a chance’ to work together. It took a long time before he realized that they had built a wall that would be permanently GOP territory for years to come. They were not interested in doing anything he wanted. That was when he began to make executive decisions.*
So we come to the outrage that is the GOP today. They do not represent the majority. Nearly 3 million more people voted for Hillary Clinton. In addition, there is every indication that many were intimidated and stayed home for a variety of reasons, including that they would be arrested for voter fraud. Last, the Russian interference and lies that were propagated about Hillary that people actually believed (like the man who barged into a*Pizza shop with a gun and demanded the children be freed from the pedophile ring that Hillary was running) ...the shift in the numbers of voters that indicated they were for Hillary two weeks before the election and then voted for DJT could be 2-5 million voters. *
Between the gerrymandering and the voter restriction, the GOP is now in a position to do more damage, by making their positions more entrenched. That is why President Obama and Eric Holder have both indicated their interest in working on more equitable boundaries for voting districts.*
One of the most important diaries has gone unnoticed, but we need to sound a rallying cry. DJT has signed a request to postpone a case that has already been adjudicated many times in Texas.*
Eric Nelson wrote a brilliant diary about it here, outlining all the legal shenanigans of the GOP and their march to repress the vote of people of color and the poor and elderly.*
We must stop the Sessions appointment as Attorney General. We must CALL. OUR. SENATORS. EVERY. DAY. until we succeed at defeating him.
We must also get the Texas case out into the public eye. The GOP’s actions and voter repression need to be made public. Their shame should be on the tip of every tongue at every rally or every march e.g. the Women’s March. or any other protest or rally. We cannot let them restrict 200,000-300,000 voters in the next election!!!
Don’t let Mitch McConnell have a certainty of keeping his position, by letting their cheating at gerrymandering and voter suppression succeed.
Help get Eric Nelson’s diary be recommended. Pass the word along.
