And The Winner Is…Third-Place Common Cause ‘Gerrymander Standard’ Essay

As we told you in December, nonprofit good-government group Common Cause this past December announced its first-ever “Gerrymander Standard” essay contest.

Here’s how the “Gerrymandering Standard” writing contest worked: Practitioners, scholars and students were invited to submit original, unpublished works between 25 and 50 pages in length (including footnotes) “creating a new definition for partisan gerrymandering or further developing an existing definition.”

A judging committee composed of leading academics and former Supreme Court justices selected the top three papers, the authors of which will receive case prizes and publication in the Election Law Journal.

Congrats to Anthony McGann from the University of Strathclyde, Charles Anthony Smith and Alex Keena from UC Irvine, and Michael Latner from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, authors of the third-place essay titled, ““A Discernable and Manageable Standard for Partisan Gerrymandering.”

Here is a little more about the essay via the authors’ abstract:

The case of Veith v. Jubelirer (2004) challenges us to find a standard for partisan gerrymandering that is judicially

discernable and manageable. Without such a standard even the most egregious partisan gerrymanders cannot be effectively challenged.

However, we argue that the way to find a suitable standard is not to embark on a quest for a “new” standard.

Rather it is to take the existing valid measures that science gives us, and show that these can be grounded in

constitutionally protected rights. Using recent results in social choice theory, we show that the existing partisan

symmetry standard can be derived from an individual right to equal protecti on. We also show that the existing technology for measuring partisan symmetry can provide a judicially manageable test for partisan bias.

Interested in reading more? Check out the introduction here.

Stay tuned for more on the second-place winner tomorrow!

Ohio Legislature Passes Historic Redistricting Process Measure

Hey Pennsylvania voters, our neighbor, Ohio, this month passed an historic redistricting process measure.

Known as HJR 12, the bill will be presented to Ohio voters in next year’s general election.

HJR 12 will require that state legislative district be drawn:

• so they won’t favor or disfavor any party
• so that neighborhoods, cities and towns aren’t split up (unless it is necessary)
• by elected state legislators and those in statewide posts (still)

Here’s what WOSU.org wrote:

The state alters district lines to reflect population shifts identified by the U.S. Census every 10 years. The process is called redistricting. Both political parties have acknowledged flaws in Ohio’s system, which is frequently criticized as partisan.

The measure would create a seven-member panel to redraw lines. Two minority-party votes would be needed to adopt the boundaries for the 10-year period. Lacking those votes, the majority would draw them. They would initially be good for four years, and then the panel would try again.

This measure comes at a time when redistricting has been in the news. On this blog alone we’ve written about a mathematical study that showed that gerrymandered districts in North Carolina did not mesh with voter preferences therein, and about a new newsletter dedicated entirely to redistricting via the Brennan Center.

To read the entire measure, click here.

Could a Writing Contest End Gerrymandering? Common Cause is Finding Out

Is there a way to create legislative districts where lawmakers aren’t cherry-picking their own voters? The Washington, D.C.-based good-government non-profit Common Cause is sponsoring a writing contest to find out.

Yes. There is a writing contest to help end gerrymandering.

Here’s what Common Cause wrote about the contest in a recent entry to its Democracy Wire:

“Under existing precedents, where judges largely must allow partisan gerrymandering to continue unmolested, lawmakers have grown extraordinarily sophisticated in drawing maps that ensure that a state’s legislature or congressional delegation will bear little resemblance to the preferences of its voters. Indeed, GOP-friendly maps played a significant role in keeping the House in Republican hands during the soon-to-expire Congressional term, despite the fact that the electorate actually preferred Democrats to Republicans in 2012.

Though it is unclear that the Court’s present majority could be convinced to strike down these sorts of gerrymanders under any circumstances, if nothing else, the anti-gerrymandering writing contest could provide a future Court with a legal standard it could use to prevent these kinds of maps from being drawn in the future.”

Here’s how the “Gerrymandering Standard” writing contest works: Practitioners, scholars and students are invited to submit original, unpublished works between 25 and 50 pages in length (including footnotes) “creating a new definition for partisan gerrymandering or further developing an existing definition.

A judging committee composed of leading academics and former Supreme Court justices will select the top three papers, the authors of which will receive case prizes and publication in the Election Law Journal.

Did we mention that the top prize is $5,000?

Anyone can submit a paper, but they must do so by Feb. 27. The entire list of rules for the contest may be found on the Common Cause website.

Three Election-Related Stories You Have to Read Today

There have been a ton of great stories related to fair-election issues that have been published so far this month. We wanted to highlight three that you might want to take a look at before you head into your weekend.

Here they are:

1. This story about gerrymandering. Titled, “One of the Few Tools Left to Stop Gerrymandering is in Peril” was written by Norm Ornstein and published on The Atlantic. Here is an excerpt:

gerrymandering moves House and state-legislative elections away from any meaningful responsiveness to the will of the people. And the pattern of lawmakers choosing their voters instead of voters choosing their lawmakers creates more disaffection and cynicism among the public.

Almost every other democracy of significance avoids such problems by creating nonpartisan bodies to draw district boundaries.

How do we reform the redistricting process in this country? Through independent commissions that can use multiple criteria—not just equal population in districts, but factors such as competitiveness, compactness, and communities of interest—to create districts that more closely reflect broader public views. But creating independent commissions is no easy task; doing so through legislative action requires buy-in from the same lawmakers who draw the district lines—and who have the least incentive to give up their power via reform.

2. This story about how electoral laws have impacted Latino voters. Titled, “Electoral Laws Should Strengthen, Not Restrict, Voter Registration” was published on the Huffington Post’s Latino Voices blog. Here is an excerpt:

The Hispanic electorate is expanding rapidly and has become increasingly influential in recent electoral cycles. Is it merely a coincidence that states are passing voter identification laws that disproportionately impact Latino voter turnout, at precisely the moment at which the Latino vote is growing more influential? Experts agree that voter-fraud is extremely rare, and that voter identification laws are a solution in need of a problem. Yet rather than woo a rapidly growing Hispanic electorate by embracing Latino policy priorities, some politicians have instead opted to suppress the Hispanic electorate through measures such as voter I.D. laws. These policies are bad for our democracy, and over the long-term they represent bad politics, given that the Hispanic electorate will only continue to grow.

3. And finally, this story about social media and its effect on voter turnout. Titled, “Social Media Hasn’t Boosted Young Voter Turnout,” was published on the Washington Post. Here’s an excerpt:

People following politics and using social media, probably see plenty of online discussion of elections. The Pew Research Center recently found that 41 percent of adults (of all ages) who are “very interested” in politics saw mostly political content in their Twitter feeds in 2014.

But social media can also be apolitical. The Pew study found that more than a third of adult Twitter users who are uninterested in politics saw no political content at all on Twitter. If you rely on social media, it is possible to completely miss a political event as important as a national election.

This may be one reason why the rapid rise of social media has not boosted youth voter turnout. Based on the National Exit Polls’ demographic data (which are the best data we have at this point), CIRCLE calculates that about 21.5 percent of young adults voted in 2014. Since 1994, when comparable exit polls were first conducted, that proportion has never risen above 24 percent, nor fallen below 20 percent. This year’s turnout was almost precisely at the 20-year average.

Upcoming Brennan Center Newsletter Focuses on Redistricting

Interested in the topic of redistricting? The Election Law Blog is reporting that the Brennan Center for Justice will soon be launching a monthly newsletter dedicated to the topic.

Signing up to be a recipient is easy – just click here.

By way of background, the Brennan Center, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, has myriad sources on its website.

There is an intro-to-redistricting piece, as well as a page devoted to resources for advocates.

Curious about how the redistricting process is handled state by state? There’s an FAQ of sorts for that, too.

For information specific to the recent redistricting in Pennsylvania, visit this website, which includes links to reports, rulings and more.

Study: Gerrymandered Districts Don’t Represent Will of People

A new study on recent redistricting has called into question whether the elections in the redrawn districts “represent the will of the people.”

In the study, titled, “Redistricting and the Will of the People,” authors Jonathan C. Mattingly and Christy Vaughn – a preliminary version of which was released in late October – introduced a non-partisan probability distribution on Congressional redistricting in North Carolina.

The study found that when random districts were drawn and the results of the 2012 election were re-tabulated in those districts, an average of 7.6 democratic representatives were elected. Indeed, in 95 percent of the randomly drawn districts, between six and nine Democrats.

According to the study:

Both of these facts are in stark contrast with the four Democrats elected in the 2012 elections with the same vote counts. This brings into serious question the idea that such elections represent the ‘will of the people.’ It underlines the ability of redistricting to undermine the democratic process, while on the face allowing democracy to proceed.

The 20-page study includes in-depth descriptions of the methodology researchers used, as well as myriad maps and diagrams.

In concludes by saying:

Redistrictings producing outcomes which are significantly different than the typical results obtained from random sampled redistrictings are arguable at odds with the will of the people expressed in the record of their votes. The fact that the election outcomes are so dependent on the choice of redistrictings demonstrates the need for checks and balances to ensure that democracy is served when redistrictings are drawn and the election outcome is representative of the votes casted.

It seems unreasonable to expect that politics would not enter into the process of redistricting. Since the legislators represent the people and presumably express their will, restricting their ability to express that will seems contrary to the very idea of democracy. This seems to be the opinion of a number of the current Supreme Court Justices. Yet the work in this note could likely be developed into a criteria to decide when a redistricting fails to be succinctly democratic. It would perhaps be reasonable to only allow redistricting which yield the more typical results, eschewing the most atypical as a subversion of the peoples will. This would still leave plenty of room for politics but add a counter-weight to balance that role of partisanship when it acts against the democratic ideals of a republic governed by the people.

Want to read more? You can check out the entire study by clicking here.

Spotlight: Students Join Voter ID Battle, Redistricting Panel Urges SCOTUS to Reject Challenge, Justice Dept. Sues NC Over Voter ID Law

There’s been a flurry of news over the past few days about fair elections in the U.S. If you’re trying to stay in the know about issues such as voter ID and gerrymandering, here are three stories that should be on your radar:

1. The New York Times this past weekend ran a front-page story titled, “Students Joining Battle to Upend Laws on Voter ID.” The secondary headline read, “College Students Claim Voter ID Laws Discriminate Based on Age.” The story centers around the students’ joining the “battle” against a controversial North Carolina voter ID law.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Joining a challenge to a state law alongside the N.A.A.C.P., the American Civil Liberties Union and the Justice Department, lawyers for seven college students and three voter-registration advocates are making the novel constitutional argument that the law violates the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18 from 21. The amendment also declares that the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age.”

There has never been a case like it, and if the students succeed, it will open another front in what has become a highly partisan battle over voting rights.”

To read the entire story, click here.

2. Speaking of North Carolina’s controversial voter ID law, a Washington Post blog carried this headline Monday: “Justice Department Sues North Carolina over voter ID law.”

Here’s an excerpt:

“The law requires voters to show photo ID at the polls, eliminates same-day registration and pre-registration for students as young as 16, and cuts the early-voting period from 17 to 10 days. Lawyers from the U.S. Department of Justice, NAACP, and League of Women Voters will argue for a preliminary injunction against portions of the law in a U.S. District Court in Winston-Salem on Monday. A trial will be held in the case in 2015, according to the Associated Press.”

To read the entire story, click here.

A judge in January struck down a similar voter ID law in Pennsylvania, ruling it unconstitutional. Need a refresher? Here’s the story.

3. The Arizona Capitol Times on Monday carried a story about a bid state lawmakers are making to reclaim the power to draw congressional lines. Headlined “Redistricting panel urges US Supreme Court to reject challenge from state lawmakers” read:

“…In 2000, when voters created the redistricting commission: They constitutionally took away the power that lawmakers had had since statehood to draw both congressional and legislative lines.

Those legislative lines are the subject of a separate federal court challenge by Republican interests on different grounds. This case, filed by the leaders of the Republican-controlled Legislature, goes solely to that federal constitutional language of who gets to craft congressional districts.

The fight is more than academic.

If the Supreme Court sides with the Legislature, it would allow lawmakers to scrap the lines the commission has drawn for the state’s nine congressional districts ahead of the 2016 election, lines that in the 2012 election resulted in the election of five Democrats and four Republicans. And that would pave the way for members of the GOP majority to alter the districts in a way to give their party’s candidates an electoral edge.”

To read the entire story, click here.

 

 

 

Spotlight: Ending Gerrymandering, Fighting for the Voting Rights Act, and Debating the Constitutionality of Unlimited Political Spending

There’s been a flurry of fair-election stories from across the country this week. Here are three that we’re putting in the spotlight:

1. Nicholas Stephanopoulos this week wrote an op-ed about his theory about how the country can end gerrymandering – the manipulating the boundaries of an electoral constituency to favor one party or class – in New Republic.

He writes:

“Litigants keep losing these lawsuits because they keep proposing standards the courts have already rejected (such as partisan intent). They’re failing to capitalize on encouraging comments by the Supreme Court, which show that it’s open to a test based on partisan symmetry—the idea that district plans should treat the parties equally. In a forthcoming law review article, Eric McGhee and I lay out just such a test. If plaintiffs were to use it in litigation, they’d have a fighting chance at winning. And if they were to win, then the whole landscape of redistricting in America would be transformed.”

To read the entire piece, click here.

2. In 2010, a Supreme Court decision known as Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission protected the right of corporations and unions to spend money on political speech and removed limits on how much they could spend themselves – which was the subject of a recent debate.

NPR posted the audio of the debate, and gave this background information on its website:

“In these Oxford-style debates, the team that sways the most people by the end of the debate is declared the winner. One side took the position that political advocacy is exactly the kind of speech that the First Amendment is designed to protect, and that limiting spending means inhibiting expression. The other argued that spending is not the same as speech, and allowing unlimited spending gives some voices more power than others.

Before the debate, the audience at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia voted 33 percent in favor of the motion and 49 percent against, with 18 percent undecided. After the debate, 33 percent agreed with the motion, while 65 percent were against, making the team arguing against the motion the winner of this particular debate.”

To read the entire report (including bios of panelists who argued for and against the motion) and hear the audio, click here.

3. The Voting Rights Amendment Act continues to dominate news headlines.

On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Georgia, penned an op ed titled, “Congress Must Act to Bolster Voting Rights Act” that appeared on the Huffington Post blog.

In it, he wrote:

“Voter disenfranchisement does not only occur in states with a history of discrimination. Most recently, we have seen an uptick in attempts to disenfranchise voters in other jurisdictions around the country. The 2012 elections saw the attempt to disenfranchise voters taken to a whole new level — with voter ID laws, cutting off early voting in certain areas, end to same-day registration and measures making it harder to register large groups of voters.

It’s these kinds of second-generation forms of racial bias that the VRA and Section 4 address specifically.”

To read the entire piece, click here.

For an FAQ on the Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014, click here.

To take action and voice your support of the bill, click here.