One has to ask if a group of people has to “cheat” to win an election, what’s wrong with their party’s platform or core values? If they have to gerrymander to an extreme, that says a lot about them and the direction of ultra-conservative views. If their constituents agreed, they would not have to succumb to the extremes our Board of Supervisors’ majority has adopted and perpetrated upon the very people they took an oath to represent.
What our Board of Supervisors’ majority has accomplished is to manipulate the boundaries of (an electoral constituency) to favor one party—theirs. In representative democracies, gerrymandering refers to political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent of creating undue advantage for a party. Is it legal? Yes, or in the case of San Luis Obispo County, the courts will decide. Is it moral? No!
Their primary goals are to maximize the effect of their supporters’ votes and to minimize or eliminate entirely the effect of opponents’ views and votes.
If their views do not align with the majority of voters; if they cannot win on their own virtues, values, ideas and track record, then maybe it is time for them to reevaluate them.
Pandora Nash-Karner
Los Osos
This article appears in Apr 7-17, 2022.
There is a reason CPAC is holding it’s annual meeting in Hungary next month. Viktor Orban is a Christian Nationalist, an authoritarian and has eliminated all oppositon in the press and political arena. Don’t expect the GOP to revise its platform to appeal to voters; their intent is to impose the will of their donors on all of us.
If Republicans are the party which supposedly cheats, why is it the Democrats that fight every effort to prevent cheating and make voting more secure? There is no good reason to oppose voter ID, nor to allow vote harvesting party operatives to go into voter’s homes and “help” them complete their ballots. Nor is it proper to use food and drink to “bait” voters into going to the poll. Automatic mail voting sends ballots to old addresses where anyone can cast the ballot. And, of course, it has been the Democrats who enthusiastically extend the franchise to the graveyard – why should you lose the right to vote just because you are “pulse-challenged”?