Gerrymandering
Title: World News #74 – Gerrymandering (Election Hacking)
Created: 2022
Medium: Graphic Design
Software: Adobe Illustrator CC
Dimensions: 36″x48″
Articles
“In Alabama, Republicans drew a new seven-district map that packed a large portion of the state’s Black population into one district favoring Democrats and dispersed the rest across six majority white districts heavily tilted to Republicans. Since Black Alabamans account for 27% of the state’s total population, a seven-seat congressional district map should provide two Black majority seats, according to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Civil and voting rights groups challenged the map in federal court where a three-judge district court panel, made up of two Donald Trump appointees and one appointed by Bill Clinton, found that the map violated the Voting Rights Act and ordered the state to draw a new map with an additional Black majority district. When Alabama asked the court to lift the injunction on the district map as it appealed its decision, the judges denied it, noting that this was a “straightforward Section Two case,” backed by “an extremely robust body of evidence.”
Similarly, Louisiana Republicans passed a new congressional district map over the veto of Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards with five majority white districts heavily favoring Republicans, and only one majority Black district favoring Democrats despite Black Louisianans accounting for 33% of the state population. A district court judge ordered a new map drawn since the “Black representation under the enacted plan is not proportional to the Black share of population in Louisiana.””
– HuffPost, 3 Racially Discriminatory Maps And One Illegal Partisan Gerrymander Could Help GOP Win The House.
“Since January, judges in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Ohio have found that Republican legislators illegally drew those states’ congressional maps along racial or partisan lines, or that a trial very likely would conclude that they did. In years past, judges who have reached similar findings have ordered new maps, or had an expert draw them, to ensure that coming elections were fair.
But a shift in election law philosophy at the Supreme Court, combined with a new aggressiveness among Republicans who drew the maps, has upended that model for the elections in November. This time, all four states are using the rejected maps, and questions about their legality for future elections will be hashed out in court later.
The immediate upshot, election experts say, is that Republicans almost certainly will gain more seats in midterm elections at a time when Democrats already are struggling to maintain their bare majority.”
– The New York Times, Maps in Four States Were Ruled Illegal Gerrymanders. They’re Being Used Anyway.
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World News
World News is a poster project by Ihanktonwan Dakota artist David Bernie that promotes issues and stories worldwide.
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