Arguably the most important election of the century looms on the horizon, how could 27 states' unethical political practice influence the outcome of the race?
This year, the various election scenarios that could play out may be greatly influenced by the normally unimportant state legislatures and by the unethical election practice that some of them employ – Gerrymandering. Legislators have the power to redraw electoral constituencies in 27 states every ten years (many of which are swing states this year) and use gerrymandering to favour their party. This power could influence the Presidential race in two ways; if a decision comes down to either state legislators or Representatives in the House, both of which are elected through the state district system which is susceptible to Gerrymandering in many states.
Gerrymandering was utilised greatly by the Republican party following their red sweep of state legislatures in 2010 and is, in part, the reason why they are going into the 2020 election still in control of the majority of state legislatures. The huge Republican success coincided with the decennial redrawing of district boundaries allowing the party to utilise Gerrymandering, which is only really able to be exercised every 10 years when state district boundaries are redrawn.
To understand how the Republican party has used redistricting for their own political gain, it is important to understand Gerrymandering which, at its heart, is simply manipulating the boundaries of electoral constituencies to favour a political party. Say the legislators in a state are looking to make the majority of districts republican even though the majority of the state’s population is looking to vote democrat; Legislators would draw boundaries so as to pack and crack democrat voters. Legislators pack a district to include as many of the democrats as possible, helping the republican party to win in surrounding districts and crack groups of democrats into several districts so they will be outnumbered in each district. This packing and cracking results in weird, oddly shaped congressional maps and politicians being able to effectively choose their voters. This occurred in Wisconsin’s 2012 congressional elections which, after republican redistricting and gerrymandering carried out in 2011, resulted in republicans gaining 61% of the state’s available congressional seats even with a majority democrat vote. Gerrymandering is highly undemocratic, and one could talk for hours about how it discriminates against ethnic minorities or leads to deficient voter representation, but crucially this year gerrymandering may decide who gets inaugurated as president on 20th January.
The blue shift is a phenomenon that occurs during the counting of ballots in a presidential election and is characterised by initial republican success which is then met with democrat support towards the end of the ballot counting process – a democrat (blue) shift. This phenomenon is, in part, caused by the tendency of republican voters to live in more sparsely populated counties which don’t take as long to count votes, yet the effect is expected to be amplified this year because of mail-in ballots that take longer to count. It is projected that there will be twice as many mail-in ballots submitted as there were in 2016, 69% of Biden voters are expected to vote mail and therefore there will likely be a heightened blue shift effect. The increase in the more time-consuming mail-in ballots may cause the election result to be pro-longed, perhaps even artificially prolonged by Trump to make the blue-shift seem more suspicious. Whilst the results of each states’ election don’t have to be reported on election night, results have to come before the electoral college appointment on December 8th. So, what happens when states don’t have the results in time? State legislators can appoint the electors regardless of how a state voted. Even if a state overwhelmingly voted democrat, republican state legislators could arbitrarily appoint the electors to vote in Trump.
The question then arises as to what would happen should the election fall to legislators. As I said, the 2011 redistricting process saw Republican legislatures gain the ability to redraw 55% of districts (compared to democrat 10), thanks to subsequent gerrymandering, Republicans have kept control of the majority of state legislatures, including the legislatures of many key swing states. States crucial to a Biden victory like Ohio, Michigan, Florida and Georgia contain textbook examples of Gerrymandering. Ohio has its duck-shaped 4th district, which together with other gerrymandered districts, helped Ohio’s Republican congressional candidates hold onto 75% of Ohio’s House seats whilst getting just 52% of the vote total. Michigan’s 14th district is designed to pack democrat voters together, voting an overwhelming 81% democrat in the 2018 midterm elections. Texas’s 2nd district in Houston is contorted to crack democrat voters and succeeded in electing a Republican in the midterms, despite Houston’s increasingly democrat population. One could go on and on discussing different examples of Gerrymandering within swing states, of which there are countless other examples, yet, whilst a scenario where state legislators disregard the popular vote and appoint the electoral college to vote Trump would be catastrophic for Biden, there are other ways gerrymandering may alter the course of the election.
Should the election be heavily contested, some states could just choose not to send any electors to the electoral college. If enough states do this, it could contribute to creating a situation where neither Trump nor Biden could achieve the 270 electoral college votes needed to become president. The election of the president would then go to the House of Representatives where each state delegation, as opposed to each representative, would cast one vote for the president. Needless to say, this would favour Trump since Democrats are more inclined to live in densely populated states like California and New York, which would only have one vote despite having a much higher population and, under the current House make-up, Trump would be expected to win by 26-23. Whilst it would be the newly voted representatives determining the election, not the current ones, redistricting and Gerrymandering would make it very difficult for Biden to be elected this way. Let’s take the example of Ohio, despite winning 47.27% of the popular vote in the 2018 midterm elections, the Democrats only gained 4 out of the 16 seats available, the culprit – Gerrymandering. Remember Ohio’s gerrymandered duck-shaped 4th district or its so-called ‘snake on the lake’ district designed to pack democrats? Since the presidential election within a state is done by popular vote, Ohio would be considered a swing state, yet house elections are done by district appointments and, thanks to Gerrymandering, the clear majority of state delegations are Republican and so, should the presidential election come down to a House vote, the Ohio state delegation would likely vote in president Trump. A similar situation in Texas, with 2018 midterm elections showing a 47% democratic vote, yet democrats only receiving 13 out of 36 available seats in the house. An algorithm published on fivethirtyeight.com calculated that if Ohio’s congressional districts were drawn to promote proportionally partisan representation, it’s state delegation in the house would be made up of a majority of democrats which would shift a potential 2020 presidential vote to 25-24. This effect would likely be similar in other republican-gerrymandered states in the US and gives an indication as to, should this situation arise, how biased the house election of a president would be.
Whilst these two situations for a presidential election have only occurred a few times in the history of the US, the stakes of the current presidential race make them all the more likely in 2020. The Gerrymandering involved in these two election methods influences the fairness of a presidential race in a negative way and so one must hope that these election methods aren’t used. Whilst many efforts have been made through the supreme court to ban Gerrymandering, it remains up to individual states’ discretion. However, the shift towards unbiased redistricting commissions and further legal cases against the practice indicates suppression of its use and a shift to a more democratic system of congressional and legislative elections.
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