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Stop Gerrymandering Now!

Jeff Gates2018

Chamomile Tea Party

Chamomile Tea Party
Washington, DC, United States

Stop Gerrymandering Now!, 2018

Demographics are not on the Republican Party's side. Our nation is younger and more multi-ethnic. These trends will continue to increase. So, what's the GOP to do? Rather than change with the times, they place barriers to voting to counteract their dwindling base. And they have used different strategies in jurisdictions where they control state legislatures. Flash forward to 2020: when the Democrats wanted to include in a coronavirus stimulus bill $400M to states to help them conduct secure mail-in voting, Donald Trump stated, "[The Democrats] had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again." Twenty-five states have enacted laws restricting voting.

Georgia has allegedly purged over 50,000 voters because voters' registration forms didn't exactly match information in state databases. African Americans make up 32% of the state’s population, but they represent nearly 70% of the suspended applications.

Gerrymandering, one of the oldest forms of voter suppression, has been used by both the Republicans and Democrats to reduce the power of voters. By cracking (diluting the power of opposition voters by scattering them throughout many districts) and packing (isolating opposition voters in one district), states can manipulate the vote. Since, in most states, laws task legislatures with setting these districts, the party that holds the majority has the power to swing the vote.

Until laws change to make it easy to vote (many states allow same-day registration on election day) and until the majority party can no longer set boundaries for legislative districts (some states now have non-partisan committees which draw boundaries), voter suppression will continue to be rampant in American elections.


The posters in this series reflect the conflicts the American political system has been experiencing during the turbulent period between 2010-2020. They are meant to encourage an exploration and a dialogue about the cultural minefield we now find ourselves in.

Details

  • Title: Stop Gerrymandering Now!
  • Creator: Jeff Gates
  • Date Created: 2018
  • Rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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