Thursday, November 13, 2014

Gerrymandering in Michigan

Pretty depressing statistics on the latest election in Michigan:
State House

1,536,711 (51.2%) total votes cast for state House Democratic candidates that resulted in 47 Democratic House seats (43%)
1,464,983 (48.8%) total votes for state House Republican candidates result in 63 Republican House seats (57%)

State Senate

1,483,938 (49.3%) total votes for state Senate Democratic candidates result in 11 Democratic Senate seats (29%)
1,528,393 (50.7%) total votes for state Senate Republican candidates result in 27 Republican Senate seats (71%)

U.S. Congress

1,506,455 (49.1%) total votes for Democratic congressional candidates result in 5 Democratic congressional seats (36%)
1,458,264 (47.6%) total votes for Republican congressional candidates result in 9 Republican congressional seats (64%)
We really need to take on gerrymandering. Most voters either don't care or trust supposedly neutral commissions even less than politicians, but this sort of thing defeats democracy in the most basic way.

1 comment:

leif said...

exactly. texas is king of it. this together with voting laws not supported by any brand of science or statistics are the new face of jim crow.