Democrats Still Face Uphill Fight In 2018 Due To GOP Barriers To Voting

Based on the muted response from Republicans in Congress over Trump’s attempt to obstruct justice by firing James Comey, it appears that the only thing that may save our democracy will be a Democratic victory in the House in 2018. But, while the momentum right now is clearly with Democrats, under the current extremely gerrymandered system that Republicans have put in place over the last two decades, it will take a herculean effort from Democrats to actually do that.

According to a Daily Kos study of the 2016 election, Trump won 230 congressional districts compared to Hillary Clinton’s 205 districts, despite the fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3%. And, making the admittedly unreasonable assumption that every district would move in same proportion as they actually voted, Democrats would need to win the national popular vote by 5.5% in order to actually win the House. A more complex study determined that 55% of congressional districts are drawn to favor Republicans. That doesn’t sound too bad until you see that only 10% are drawn to favor Democrats and the remaining one third are drawn to favor neither party. Part of this is simply the fact the Democrats tend to cluster in and around urban centers but a lot is due to GOP gerrymandering. These numbers clearly illustrate the disadvantages that Democrats face in the House, supposedly the most democratic of our nationally elected offices.

Gerrymandering is not the only disadvantage for Democrats. We also have to contend with massive and organized voter suppression. Another study comparing the 2012 and 2016 election found that strict voter ID laws in Mississippi, Virginia, and Wisconsin reduced turnout by 1.7% compared to a 1.3% increase in turnout for states that did not implement voter ID. And, the more predominantly African American a county was, the greater the negative effect on turnout of strict voter ID, with the worst counties seeing a decline in participation of 2.8%. Again, these are significant numbers to overcome. In fact voter ID made truth out of Wisconsin’s GOP Representative Glenn Grothman’s prediction back in April of 2016 when he said, “Now we have photo ID, and I think photo ID is gonna make a little bit of a difference as well.” In fact, voter ID in that state is estimated to have suppressed enough votes to carry the state for Trump.

Another problem for Democrats is that the recourse for challenging discriminatory gerrymandering is getting more and more difficult for Democrats, both at the national and state level, with challenges dragging on for years. This has been compounded by the 2013 decision by the Supreme Court to gut the enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby v. Holder case. This ruling also spawned a whole host of new state voting restrictions. The lack of recourse is perfectly illustrated by what is going on in Texas right now where courts recently struck down the congressional and state maps over intentional racial discrimination. Incredibly, this case has been going on since 2011 and these illegal voting districts have been used in two of the last three elections since that time. That means that for half this decade certain voters in Texas have participated in elections where they were illegally discriminated against.

Or take the state of North Carolina where 28 state legislative districts that were drawn in 2010 and in effect for the last three elections have been deemed to be an unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. An attempt to hold a special election in 2017 as some form of redress was squashed by Chief Justice John Roberts in his capacity as overseer of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that covers North Carolina. In other words, for half of the elections in this decade, minorities in these 28 districts have had their voting rights diluted.

Or take the state of Wisconsin again where gerrymandered state districts in 2012 allowed Republicans to not only win a majority of State Assembly seats but actually a third more seats than Democrats, despite the fact that Democrats actually won the popular vote. This case is actually now headed to the Supreme Court and the decision the Court will make will have an enormous impact on what our democracy will look like in the coming years.

Racial gerrymandering can be identified statistically but it is more difficult to identify strictly partisan ones. The plaintiffs in the Wisconsin case are using another unique statistical model to create what is called an efficiency gap which measures what, in effect, are “wasted votes”. If the number of wasted votes has a large enough variance from historical patterns, it would be an indication of an illegal partisan gerrymander. Whether or not the Court will buy this argument remains to be seen.

As usual, Justice Kennedy will be the swing vote and he has recognized the importance of somehow reaching a reasonable consensus on gerrymandering, saying, “The ordered working of our Republic, and of the democratic process, depends on a sense of decorum and restraint in all branches of government, and in the citizenry itself.” Considering the situation with the State Assembly in Wisconsin and the result in the 2000 and 2016 election, the threat to our democracy is greater now than it has been in decades. It becomes pretty hard to call yourself a democracy when the people winning the majority of the votes continue to “lose” elections or remain in the minority.

So the hurdles for Democrats are enormous in 2018. Beyond the voter suppression and extreme gerrymandering, it is an off-year election which usually results in reduced Democratic turnout. And if those barriers aren’t enough for Democrats, Republicans are preparing to set up more hurdles for the next decade. The 2020 census will determine how congressional districts will be reapportioned next ten years. As the minority population continues to grow, an accurate census could be very helpful for Democratic electoral prospects going forward. But the current budget for the 2020 census is woefully underfunded and Republicans are refusing to provide additional funds. That dispute has prompted the current head of the US Census Bureau to resign as he apparently feels he is being set up to fail by the Republicans. Of course, a poorly run census would probably benefit Republicans so it is not surprising to see the GOP trying to foul up the process. The current Republican party is determined to make sure that the only people who can vote or whose votes will count are the ones they choose. It is an interesting view about what a democracy actually entails.