GOP wins on Tuesday largely due to gerrymandering

If the Republicans in the state Legislature are still determined to pass their bill that would allocate Michigan Electoral College votes by congressional district, it's worth taking a look at just how mangled those districts are due to gerrymandering.

David Holtz, a liberal activist who apparently is retired these days, points out that, once you crunch the numbers, the big night for Michigan Republicans on Tuesday was, in large part, the creation of a rigged system.

 

Here's what Holtz posted on Facebook:

There's lots of hand-wringing, analysis and critiques going on in the aftermath of Tuesday's election so I might as well add mine to the mix. It's this: Republicans have rigged legislative elections through gerrymandering and unless there's non-partisan reforms the will of a majority of Michigan voters will not reflect in the results of elections to the state House, state Senate and Michigan's congressional delegation.

Just look at what happened Tuesday (with h/t to Alan Fox for the data):

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%)

 

So, the GOP controls the state House, 63-47, when the outcome with fairly-drawn districts should have been 56-54, with the Democrats in charge.

The Republicans have a 27-11 supermajority in the state Senate but in reality the split should be 19-19. Obviously, the vote totals indicate a 20-18 edge for the GOP was in the cards if the districts were equal, but that's a far cry from 27-11, which gives the Republicans 71 percent of the seats.

And the GOP has a substantial 9-5 margin in their favor among Michigan's congressional delegation, but the Democrats actually garnered more votes on Election Night and the House seats should be evenly divided, 7-7.

And this is the bogus system the Republicans in the state Capitol want to use for presidential elections in Michigan.

Isn't it enough that many of those GOP lawmakers owe their jobs to this phony distribution of power?