Electoral Systems-Effects: Difference between revisions
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|title=Curated News Gallery from all over the Web | |title=Curated News Gallery from all over the Web | ||
|description=Curated news selected for its relevance, longevity and non-prescriptive content. | |description=Curated news selected for its relevance, longevity and non-prescriptive content. | ||
|keywords= | |keywords=elections,democracy,electoral,free classified,politics | ||
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=====Why Fox News was created===== | |||
[https://theweek.com/articles/880107/why-fox-news-created WILLIAM FALK NOVEMBER 22, 2019 The Week] | |||
If Fox News had a DNA test, it would trace its origins to the Nixon administration. In 1970, political consultant Roger Ailes and other Nixon aides came up with a plan to create a new TV network that would circumvent existing media and provide "pro-administration" coverage to millions. "People are lazy," the aides explained in a memo. "With television you just sit — watch — listen. The thinking is done for you." Nixon embraced the idea, saying he and his supporters needed "our own news" from a network that would lead "a brutal, vicious attack on the opposition." | |||
=====Lee Atwater Republican Southern Strategy From Gold Water to Trump===== | |||
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT2fsv7xt4E "You start out in 1954 saying niger niger niger but then you get abstract and start saying you want to cut taxes and the by product of that is blacks get hurt worse than whites.] | |||
=====The House Map’s Republican Bias Will Plummet In 2022 — Because Of Gerrymandering===== | |||
[https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-house-maps-republican-bias-will-plummet-in-2022-because-of-gerrymandering by By Nathaniel Rakich and Elena Mejía 3/31/2022 538] | |||
Even in Democrats’ worst-case scenario at this point, the House’s long-standing (we’re talking over 50 years) bias toward Republicans would drastically diminish. That would certainly be historic — but it wouldn’t mean everything is finally hunky-dory with our congressional maps. Some of this increase in balance is thanks to courts striking down Republican gerrymanders in states such as North Carolina, but Democrats achieved this near-parity mostly through gerrymanders of their own in states such as New York and Illinois. The result is an overall national map that looks fair but individual state maps that are anything but. | |||
We have metrics to show this. Efficiency gap is a statistic that attempts to quantify how efficient a map is at converting votes into seats for a given party. For example, a map with an R+10 efficiency gap would be expected to produce 10 percent more Republican-leaning seats than a fair map would. The inventors of efficiency gap proposed a test whereby any map that produces two or more extra House seats for a party should be considered an unconstitutional gerrymander. Under the maps in place for the 2022 elections, seven states flunk that test, and several others come close. | |||
=====The Supreme Court is Ready to Revive a policy to Make Most of Government Unconstitutional===== | |||
[https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/12/3/1999711/-The-Supreme-Court-is-ready-to-revive-a-policy-to-make-most-of-the-government-unconstitutional] | |||
In 2019, four conservative members joined a dissent authored by Neil Gorsuch, who wrote that “the court should revive the dormant nondelegation doctrine.” Samuel Alito authored a separate opinion that also praised the nondelegation doctrine, and wished for an opportunity to make that clear in a case that was not about expanding prosecution of sex offenders. Since then both Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett have joined the nondelegation chorus. | |||
=====Our generation will either renew democracy -- or lose it forever===== | |||
[https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/08/opinions/american-democracy-trump-era-renew-lose-kasparov/index.html by Garry Kasparov Nov 17 2021 CNN] | |||
Because democratic sentiment is weak, the rights to vote and free speech are more vulnerable in my adopted home of America today than at any point in my life. And so I founded the Renew Democracy Initiative with leaders and thinkers from across the political spectrum to push back against America's growing illiberalism -- and to highlight the experiences of those like me, who have been at the forefront of fighting for democracy for decades. | |||
=====How ranked-choice voting saved the Virginia GOP from itself===== | |||
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-ranked-choice-voting-saved-the-virginia-gop-from-itself/2021/11/05/6d1aa738-3dc2-11ec-8ee9-4f14a26749d1_story.html By Raymond J. La Raja and Alexander Theodoridis the Washington Post 11/01/2021] | |||
Under a ranked-choice system, when the ballots are tallied, the last-place candidate is removed and the second choices of his supporters are distributed to the other candidates. This process continues until one candidate is left standing. There are several benefits to doing things this way. First, voters can vote sincerely for their favorite candidates — even sure losers — because they know that their subsequent choices will be counted. More important for the quality of the selection, requiring that candidates do more than eke out a modest plurality makes it less likely that a factional candidate disliked by most of the party will prevail. | |||
Had the Virginia GOP held an ordinary primary, Chase might well have won — or at least, her attacks on Youngkin might have left him wounded in the general election. Chase might have also fared better in the pressure cooker of an in-person convention held under one roof — because Trump supporters are more likely to show up, and can be vocal and aggressive in support of their candidates. (That the pandemic prodded Republicans to distribute voting across the state was a lucky break.) In the end, Youngkin straddled quite deftly the Trump-loving base and pragmatic GOP-leaning voters in the suburbs, even as he made headway with persuadable independent voters. | |||
=====Dominion sues Sidney Powell for defamation, seeking $1.3 billion in damages===== | |||
[https://www.axios.com/dominion-sues-sidney-powell-defamation-99b3bb1f-a655-4f9a-8db8-8ccfa5f02393.html Axios Policy and Politics 1/08/21] | |||
The big picture: Dominion alleges that Powell acted "in concert with allies and media outlets determined to promote a false preconceived narrative about the 2020 election—caused unprecedented harm." In an interview with the Axios Re:Cap podcast last week, Dominion CEO John Poulos did not rule out suing Trump himself. | |||
What they're saying: "As a result of the defamatory falsehoods peddled by Powell ... Dominion’s founder, Dominion’s employees, Georgia’s governor, and Georgia’s secretary of state have been harassed and have received death threats, and Dominion has suffered enormous harm," the lawsuit reads. | |||
=====After 50 years of riding waves of hate, the GOP must finally decide if Trumpism is its future===== | |||
[https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/12/26/2000891/-After-50-years-of-riding-waves-of-hate-the-GOP-must-finally-decide-if-Trumpism-is-its-future DailyKos Ian Reifowitz 12/26/20] | |||
For the purposes of this piece, I’d point you to the second episode, which focuses largely on how Reagan, starting with that 1966 campaign, repeatedly employed race-baiting rhetoric in order to exploit white Californians’ fear of and resentment toward African Americans. In the speech that launched his campaign, Reagan made very clear exactly what kind of politics he would practice. In talking about crime, he intoned, “Our city streets are jungle paths after dark,” and twice cited his support for “law and order.” There are distinct echoes in Trump’s present-day “law and order” rhetoric. | |||
=====Getting rid of Trump won't be enough to fix America's broken democracy===== | |||
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/07/us-democracy-trump-election-gerrymandering David Daley Sat 7 Nov 2020] | |||
Skewed institutions like the senate and electoral college, plus gerrymandering and voter suppression, have rigged the system in Republicans’ favor | |||
Even with a Biden administration, the worsening structural inequities embedded in the nation for centuries – and cynically exploited by Republicans to govern with narrow minority support – will still be with us. They are embodied in institutions such as the electoral college, which elected Trump in 2016 despite his losing the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. | |||
In fact, including Biden, the Democratic candidate for president has won the popular vote in seven of the last eight elections. But in part because of the electoral college’s rural bias (a vote cast for president in Wyoming counts nearly four times as much as a vote cast in California), and in part because the college heightens the importance of a handful of largely white, midwestern battleground states, Republicans have won the White House with fewer votes twice since 2000. | |||
Representational fairness is even more dire in the US Senate, which gives disproportionate power to older, whiter, more rural and more conservative interests. Right now, states representing just 17% of the nation’s population could elect a majority of senators. By 2040, the 15 most populous states will be home to 67% of Americans yet represented by just 30% of the Senate. Add up the actual votes received in the winning election of every sitting US senator, and Republicans haven’t won a senate majority since the mid-1990s. Yet they’ve controlled the Senate for 10 of the last 20 years, and used that advantage to shape the ideological balance on the federal courts. | |||
===== Democracy Diverted: Polling Place Closures and the Right to Vote ===== | |||
[https://civilrights.org/democracy-diverted/?fbclid=IwAR1qxgXSYR2hPzdhnbfqc8GKn66v_VyFUgkn21RYyJ5YfD02svq7gW2enYo# The Leadership Council on Human and Civil Rights] | |||
Texas, a state where 39 percent of the population is Latino and 12 percent is African American, has closed 750 polling places since Shelby, by far the most of any state in our study. Five of the six largest closers of polling places are in Texas. With 74 closures, Dallas County, which is 41 percent Latino and 22 percent African American, is the second largest closer of polling places, followed by Travis County, which is 34 percent Latino, (–67). Harris County, which is 42 percent Latino and 19 percent African American, (–52) and Brazoria County, which is 13 percent African American and 30 percent Latino (–37) tied with Nueces County, which is 63 percent Latino (–37). Many, but not all, of these polling places were closed as part of a statewide effort to centralize voting into “countywide polling places.” This effort slashed the number of voting locations but allowed voters to cast ballots at any Election Day polling place. Without Section 5 of the VRA, we cannot assess the impact these mass closures have on communities of color. | |||
====='Just like propaganda': the three men enabling Trump's voter fraud lies===== | ====='Just like propaganda': the three men enabling Trump's voter fraud lies===== | ||
