Statewide voter suppression in Maryland...

     Today, an article from the Baltimore Sun caught my eye.  It's about gerrymandering reform in Maryland. 

     It got me thinking about a blog post I had written after the last mid-term elections, but never got around to posting.  I think I wanted to let a little time pass before I posted something I had written while so. very. angry.  That's a thing... Isn't it? Never put something in writing when you are angry?

     The post was about voter suppression in Maryland.  

     Suppression... disenfranchisement... deprivation... Whatever you want to call it. 

     But it may not be what you think. 

     It wasn't those cheating Republicans, as the media's drumbeat goes. 

     It was all but six Democrats in the Maryland legislature, with the signature of then-Governor Martin O'Malley, Democrat. 

     Gerrymandering. 

     Perfectly legal, I guess... because they voted it into law in 2012 (see vote details here). 

     And oh. so. perfectly. effective. 

     Click here for the history of the 2012 redistricting plan.

     The Republicans had offered a plan that looked like this (see map just below), grouping swaths of the state pretty much by counties with shared commonalities. But it was rejected.

Just below is the map that passed instead.  

Click here to see the 2002 map that this one replaced. 

Click here to see its predecessor from 1991. 

     Look at those convoluted districts. The party in power does this for only one reason. To stay in power.

     I happen to live in District 4 (see the map... bright pink/central Maryland), which meanders from the rural Chesapeake Bay clear across and around the top of District 5 to the heavily urban nation's capital. Conservatives in our suburban/rural Anne Arundel County neighborhoods will always be silenced in this district by a margin of nearly 3-1 because of the densely populated urban voters of Western Prince George's County. The same is true for conservatives in District 6/Western Maryland, whose votes were muffled by the densely populated Montgomery County liberals.

     I wonder why we should even bother to vote in the Congressional elections anymore. The deck is stacked. My voice will never matter. They have silenced me. 

     After this redistricting, there had been an effort to put a referendum on the ballot for the 2012 General Election, but by then, it was too late for that election anyway... the voters were already voting in their newly drawn gerrymandered districts. Plus, the wording of the Ballot Question was so vague, it looked more like a procedural technicality based on new census data than anything else, given that there was no map or explanation.  Here's how it appeared on the ballot:

Question 5
Referendum Petition
(Ch. 1 of the 2011 Special Session)
Congressional Districting Plan

Establishes the boundaries for the State's eight United States Congressional Districts based on recent census figures, as required by the United States Constitution.

For the Referred Law
Against the Referred Law

     The measure passed almost 2-1. I seriously doubt that hundreds of thousands of voters statewide knew that this new redistricting plan would silence their votes.
     But the legislature knew.
     Here is the vote breakdown by county for Question 5.

     This is the way Maryland voted for Governor in the recent 2014 Gubernatorial Election (scroll down when you click on the link to see the map). The red counties voted Republican, and the blue counties and independent Baltimore City voted Democrat. The three counties bordering Washington, DC (Montgomery, Prince George's, and Charles counties) traditionally contain heavy populations of Democratic voters. The same is true with Baltimore City.  In the 2012 gerrymandering, Democrat lawmakers drew from those counties for seven out of eight of Maryland's districts in such a way as to deliberately cancel out the votes of the conservatives in all but District 1.

     Here are the votes in the 2014 mid-term Congressional races, by district.  You will note that large Democratic populations from the blue counties pop up in every district but District 1.

Representative in Congress

Congressional District 1

	Bill Tilghman Democratic	Andy Harris Republican	Other Write-Ins
Baltimore	5,647	17,167	23
Caroline	2,665	6,252	6
Carroll	4,454	20,252	25
Cecil	7,678	18,377	21
Dorchester	3,731	6,431	1
Harford	14,416	47,938	76
Kent	3,261	4,232	4
Queen Anne's	5,815	13,046	16
Somerset	2,294	4,002	5
Talbot	5,735	8,830	15
Wicomico	10,073	15,093	22
Worcester	6,627	11,997	12
Totals	72,396 (29.4%)	173,617 (70.5%)	226 (.1%)

Congressional District 2

	C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger Democratic	David Banach Republican	Ian Schlakman Green	Other Write-Ins
Anne Arundel	11,092	6,466	466	15
Baltimore City	12,217	1,830	363	18
Baltimore	73,981	46,147	3,280	129
Harford	14,131	11,095	682	15
Howard	6,452	3,668	380	18
Totals	117,873 (61.3%)	69,206 (36%)	5,171 (2.7%)	195 (.1%)

Congressional District 3

	John Sarbanes Democratic	Charles A. Long Republican	Other Write-Ins
Anne Arundel	32,370	32,780	80
Baltimore City	30,407	11,587	93
Baltimore	24,142	19,223	57
Howard	19,221	11,953	39
Montgomery	19,296	9,669	47
Totals	125,436 (59.5%)	85,212 (40.4%)	316 (.1%)

Congressional District 4

	Donna F. Edwards Democratic	Nancy Hoyt Republican	Arvin Vohra Libertarian	Other Write-Ins
Anne Arundel	21,913	44,180	1,605	52
Prince George's	108,360	8,912	1,091	142
Totals	130,273 (69.9%)	53,092 (28.5%)	2,696 (1.4%)	194 (.1%)

Congressional District 5

	Steny H. Hoyer Democratic	Chris Chaffee Republican	Dennis L. Fritz (Write In) Unaffiliated	Other Write-Ins
Anne Arundel	8,370	11,983	NR	36
Calvert	14,075	17,661	NR	70
Charles	28,766	17,056	NR	149
Prince George's	75,730	14,668	95	141
St. Mary's	14,038	17,803	NR	58
Totals	140,979 (63.9%)	79,171 (35.9%)	95 (0%)	454 (.2%)

Congressional District 6

	John K. Delaney Democratic	Dan Bongino Republican	George Gluck Green	Other Write-Ins
Allegany	7,059	12,539	338	7
Frederick	17,656	15,904	787	27
Garrett	2,136	6,598	160	3
Montgomery	51,635	31,041	1,747	85
Washington	13,600	23,793	598	12
Totals	92,086 (49.6%)	89,875 (48.4%)	3,630 (2%)	134 (.1%)

Congressional District 7

	Elijah Cummings Democratic	Corrogan R. Vaughn Republican	Scott Soffen Libertarian	Other Write-Ins
Baltimore City	71,839	3,804	1,401	73
Baltimore	37,787	24,978	2,214	60
Howard	31,103	26,248	2,333	70
Totals	140,729 (69.7%)	55,030 (27.3%)	5,948 (2.9%)	203 (.1%)

Congressional District 8

	Chris Van Hollen Democratic	Dave Wallace Republican	Lih Young (Write In) Democratic	Andrew Jaye Wildman (Write In) Unaffiliated	Other Write-Ins
Carroll	10,893	25,785	2	35	58
Frederick	15,970	26,387	NR	NR	81
Montgomery	105,504	33,808	NR	NR	319
Totals	132,367 (60.5%)	85,980 (39.3%)	2 (0%)	35 (0%)	458 (.2%)

     Investment analyst David Merkel wrote about this more than two years ago, creating a map that had simple, sensical borders, divided mostly along county lines (similar to the Republican plan - see map above):

"(This) map is my creation.  Given the odd geography of Maryland, I think it does a good job of creating equal districts amid the diverse cultural geography of Maryland.

1. Western Maryland (rural)
2. The Eastern Shore (rural)
3. Southern Maryland along the Chesapeake Bay (suburban/rural)
4. Montgomery County near DC (urban)
5. Prince George’s County with Charles County to the South (urban)
6. Baltimore County less its southern fringe (suburban/urban)
7. Baltimore City w/Baltimore County’s southern fringe (urban)
8. Central Maryland (suburban/rural)

   Hmm... gerrymander reform.  Maryland desperately needs it.  I'll believe it when I see it.