One Person, No Vote

State governments exploit their administrative powers to limit representation, remove polling places in non-White neighborhoods, restrict registration drives, and encourage cynicism. In fact, the Electoral Integrity Project found that North Carolina had democratic issues comparable to Iraq and Venezuela.

Redrawing congressional district maps for political gain dates back to the country’s inception with Patrick Henry exploiting the decennial process to keep James Madison out of Congress. In 1810, Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry drew a district in the shape of a salamander, inspiring the term “gerrymandering,” and the South used this process to cull unfaithful politicians from its ranks.

They also practiced racial gerrymandering to limit the number of Black representatives. Tennessee’s city districts had only one third of the state’s representatives even as they outgrew rural areas in population. In Baker v. Carr, a resident challenged the law allowing this, stating that there is no way to resolve it through voting. The Supreme Court overturned the law as it violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection clause, stressing the importance of, “one person, one vote” (101).

The Court struggled, however, to control partisan gerrymandering by both political parties. In Davis v. Bandemer (1986), the court stated that it was not legally measurable. After 1990, Texas Democrats redistricted the state to take Republicans out of power to the point that Republicans won 50.8% of the congressional vote but only 13 of 30 seats. In 2002, Texas Republicans used state and federal authorities to force a special session to redraw districts to their advantage. Prior to state reforms, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger complained that Soviet countries changed representatives more often than the Golden State. North Carolina’s districts turned from a 7-6 party split in representatives to a 10-3 GOP advantage after 2010.

After the 2000 Census, the Pennsylvania legislature used computer mapping technology to optimize redistricting, increasing its control from 11 seats out of 21, to 13 out of 19. In 2004’s Vieth v. Jubelirer, the ACLU argued that this tool threatened democracy by making legislators impervious to voters. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court claimed that it was a political issue and that it couldn’t legislate fairness, which allowed the GOP to accelerate these practices in combination with the Citizen’s United and Shelby decisions.

In 2016, Democrat candidates for the House of Representatives received 1.4 million votes, but Republicans won 33 more seats, and the inflated number of GOP districts gave them as many as 22 representatives. The incumbent retention rate was also 97%, which is why legislators could pass unpopular laws like the 2017 tax bill and threaten immigration and healthcare programs.

After winning control of Wisconsin’s legislature in 2010, a secret GOP group spent four months developing district maps to secure their majority. In 2012, Democrats only won 39% of seats yet received more than half the statewide vote. Their position shrank in later elections, with some winners obtaining over 90% of the vote. Upon learning of the gerrymandering scheme, retired law professor Bill Whitford sued the state in Gill v. Whitford. While the Supreme Court previously ruled that voters cannot expect proportional representation, Whitford’s team argued that years of election results demonstrate measurable evidence and offered mathematical formulas to identify egregious cases. This includes an “efficiency gap” where a party has a systematic advantage: A rate above 7% suggests that too many votes are meaningless (111).

The district court ruled that the maps violated the Fourteenth Amendment, but the state appealed to the Supreme Court. Justices John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch dismissed Whitford’s formulas as “gobbledygook” (113). Whitford’s team countered that the congressional maps underwent revisions to optimize GOP control. Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that this case goes to the heart of whether there is an incentive to vote; Stephen Breyer suggested a simplified version of Whitford’s guidelines; and Sonia Sotomayor asked why the GOP’s multiple revisions weren’t proof enough of unconstitutional gerrymandering. In response, the state admitted that there was no constitutional requirement stopping them.

State officials have other means to impede voting. Cities frequently suffer hours-long wait times due to limited voting places. Republican-controlled swing states slash early voting periods that allow workers to cast their vote without taking time off, and Ohio only opens one early voting location in each county regardless of population. Black voter turnout declines by 0.5% for every one-tenth of a mile away from a polling place.

GOP officials also target voter registration drives. Florida and Texas require long training courses, oaths under felony penalty, and unreasonable turnaround times to submit registration cards. Texas now has a higher number of unregistered voters than the population of 20 states, and the League of Women Voters are not able to operate in it.