More needed to protect voting rights: clarify the VP's role and standards for vote administrators and counters

Update: April 3, 2022: Per the New York Times, both Democrats and Republicans are running into lower court opposition to political gerrymandering and there are little changes from federal district boundaries. When the Supreme Court refused to outlaw political gerrymandering, the issue was sent down for lower courts, mostly state-wide courts. In the wake of the Supreme Court's refusal to get involved, noth parties tried hard to push gerrymandering is ways that would benefit whichever party was in power in the state legislatures and governor's office.As Both Parties Gerrymander Furiously, State Courts Block the Way - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

 Below continued with original post:

More is needed to protect voting rights: clarify the. VP's role and state legislatures' abuse of gerrymandering and replacing elected elections officials with political hacks. Both the current bills and these issues need to be addressed.

In addition to the voting rights legislation defeated in the Senate today, some in the GOP have a point:  the role of the Vice President in certifying elections cannot have any ambiguities/ One person elected to back up the President as part of his slate should never have the power to keep him and his senior partner president by decertifying election results.  It is a mammoth conflict of interest and potential for subversion o the very foundation of representative democracy. Yet, that was the part  Pence was expected to play on January 6 in Trump's attempt to get a second term in an election he lost. The Vice President's role in the electoral college process should be only a rubber stamp of state by state certification.  It is that ambiguity that distorted interpretations of the VP role that put Mike Pence on the spot.  He alone should not have the power to disrupt the count of the vote to satisfy some partisan actions or to arbitrarily decide which certifications to count in the electoral college process. Pence made the right interpretation, throwing a monkey wrench in a coup attempt on January 6, 2021. It was his interpretation of the existing law that he did not have the power to do so, but such attempts by either and any party in the future should not rely on one person's judgment.  This clarification should be an amendment to the current proposed legislation, not a stand-alone attempt to drown out the need for the other two pending bills.  In addition, most troubling to the integrity of the vote count is the possible subversion of statewide elections and the electoral college process undertaken by some red state legislatures. They are passing legislation to replace independently elected election officials with party hacks of their legislature's dominant party's choosing.   What role federal legislation could play in the regulation of these state vote subversion efforts might also be included in any amendment to the voting rights legislation which is already needed.  The current bills before the Senate today address anti-discrimination enforcement provisions removed by the Supreme court ruling,  the political gerrymandering issues.,    Both the anti-discrimination and political gerrymandering issues were referred to Congress by the Supreme Court which also gutted a key enforcement provision of the 1965 act and refused to outlaw political gerrymandering. .  This is in the interest of any political party who may find their shoe on the other foot when their party is in the minority in the future.    Those who are the administration and counting of voting need to be directly accountable to the voters, but not to a partisan legislature.  Otherwise, the vote count will always be challenged by the loser as suspect and subversive. The ultimate control of the vote must be in the hands of independently elected officials. Period.  That is the real meaning of vote integrity protection.  There is no better way to destroy democracy than to have no faith in the election process by putting the process in the hands of one political party and appointed by that self-interested party, especially led by a person who has a record of using lies and threats to "find" votes needed to change the outcome of an election he lost.. 

In the words of Abe Lincoln at Gettysburg  " that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom^[—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth".  but these kinds of voter suppression and subversion laws at the state level make their governments of, by, and for a certaain political party and its leader who do not extend Lincoln's lofty hope to all. 

Even at the county level, this fight for free and fair elections depends upon whether Trump loyalists get to be in charge of the administration of elections and vote counting.    In my own rural county, the attempt by Trumpsters to put themselves in charge of elections is a threat. So far their candidate for our County Clerk is a loyalist Trumpers can count on.  So far she is unchallenged. , Even with the most secure and accessible voting system in the US, Colorado is not immune to dirty tricks by County Clerks to subvert and suppress votes...Like at what happened in Elbert and Mesa counties and why the Colorado Secretary of State had to step in. The Trumpsters have a record and are part of a plan nation wides to do what they can to upend free and fair elections and they are making an effort to put their candidates in place to do so. https://www.fox21news.com/.../2nd-colorado-clerk-accused.../  .      If anything, this illustrates how important the state officials who have the power to investigate and to discipline misbehavior should be one willing to do so and not a member or an advocate of a partisan power with a history or a stated purpose to favor one side or the other.   Update: March 10, 2022...The Mesa County Clerk was indicted by a grand jury on ten counts of tinkering with election per Colorado Politics newspaper.. results.  http://enews.offers.coloradopolitics.com/q/jHN7XqIj7h8UxL_zQ2HsbaJWfuyz2HdvLOJtwiZ2KniJFhVQwXqtiw_9J

In 2013 the supreme court gutted voting rights – how has it changed the US? | US supreme court | The Guardian

One of the practices the voting rights laws would tackle is partisan/political gerrymandering. What is so wrong with political gerrymandering and why are Democrats worried about its effect on the 2022 midterms? The For the People Act , one of the bills defeated in the Senate this month, would have banned political gerrymandering. An explainer: Political gerrymandering is the practice of drawing lines around certain districts to be dominated by registered voters in one party, making it a "safe district" for that party. It has also been used to divide districts so that racial minorities have fewer of those demographically dominated districts. The Supreme Court had ruled several years ago that racially biased gerrymandering was unconstitutional, but that political party biased gerrymandering was not. The Court referred political gerrymandering to the states or Congress to correct. An extreme gerrymandered map in Ohio has already been struck down by their State Supreme Court as "as abuse of power". We will see where this goes on any appeal . Both political parties are guilty of political gerrymander, but it is most prevalent in states where the state legislature was controlled by the GOP, with the exception of New York state where the legislature's majority was in the hands of Democrats.

Per a Brennan Center study (protected by a paywall) Using data from the 2012, 2014, and 2016 election cycles, Republicans have an advantage of 16-17 seats in the current Congress., Democrats needed 24 seats to gain control of the House in 2020. This gives the GOP a big advantage in the US House of Representatives, and it means that Democrats not only need to win, but they must also win bigger than Republicans. and why do you hear hand wringing that the GOP will control the House after the November 2022 midterms when all Congressional seats are up for the vote.

.....Those states with the most extreme maps per the Brennan Center are

Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania

Florida, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia. (The Ohio map was the one that was struck down by the Ohio Supreme Court this January as an abuse of power)

Aside from the racial bias of this practice, what is wrong with political gerrymandering? Isn't it just a good political strategy? Yes, it is that. In fact, the Democratic Party was asleep at the wheel and so to wake up to the importance of state legislative races in determining district boundaries for both their state and federal elections. However, it also contributes to immovable divides and rule by a minority party over the majority will. It distorts the reflection of the popular will... In extremely gerrymandered districts, the general election winner is a foregone conclusi\ion because of the lopsided party registration in that district. Then the action moves to the primaries. Usually, in primaries where only registered voters can vote, the winning appeal is to the most extreme elements of their party with little concern for appealing to a wider audience in a general election. Thus they are vulnerable to Trumpian threats to primary the ones not loyal enough to that large faction of the GOP. When the Constitution was written, there were no political parties, but there were philosophical divides. Those ideological divides soon became formal parties and the partisan divide over the years became filled with more extreme elements on both sides unwilling to compromise to appeal to the middle.

Gerrymandering Explained | Brennan Center for Justice

Ohio Gerrymandered Congressional Map Struck Down by Ohio Supreme Court as ‘Constitutional Violation’ | Davis Vanguard

Ohio Supreme Court strikes down new Republican-drawn congressional map as illegal gerrymander (msn.com)

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-december-2021