annual survey<\/a> of Asian American and Pacific Islander voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe noticed that there\u2019s an increasing number of independent voters among the Asian American electorate, 35% overall, and the Chinese actually had the largest percentage\u2026 at 47%. Even the Vietnamese, who support Republicans at a higher rate than any other Asian ethnic group, are losing party identification to independents,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Driving many black women were concerned about safety, said Karma Cottman, who leads Ujima, which focuses on violence targeting women in the black community. \u201cSafety for us as women, safety for us as members of the black community, overlaid with what safety looks like in terms of physical and financial safety so we are able to take care of our families.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cottman pointed to down-ballot elections, noting strong support for black female candidates. \u201cWe were voting up and down the ballot for black women,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Voter intimidation, meanwhile, did not prove to be a major issue this election, says Gowri Ramachandran, senior counsel of the Brennan Center\u2019s Democracy program. \u201cWe had law enforcement leaders in some communities coming out and saying, look, intimidation of voters and of election workers is not going to be tolerated,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exit polls showed Republicans gaining ground in support among African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. While support for Democrats remained high among women and young voters, Cottman echoed those who say Democrats spent too much time trying to flip predominantly white districts instead of investing resources in communities of color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Democrats maintained control of the Senate following a narrow win this weekend by Nevada\u2019s Catherine Cortez Masto, control of the House remains in question, though Republicans have the advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Common Cause National Redistricting Director Kathay Feng says extreme gerrymandering was a decisive factor in Republicans\u2019 strong showing in states like Ohio and Florida and will be key should they retake the House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In red states where the state legislature controls redistricting and Republican governors approve the maps they draw, the fight for fair maps is a David vs Goliath proposition. But in North Carolina and Minnesota, courts forced district maps to be redone. And in New Mexico, Native Americans threatened to blockade the commission if it didn\u2019t redraw the Navajo districts. They did so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Feng, who has been at the center of efforts to challenge partisan gerrymandering through litigation and state-based organizing around ballot initiatives and legislation, says citizens have been able to get maps drawn fairly where election commissions do the redistricting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAcross the board, we saw many improvements,\u201d she noted, pointing to states like California, Michigan, and Colorado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Michigan, voters passed a measure in 2018 to create an independent Redistricting Commission. It has made a big difference there. State Representative Joe Tate is likely to become the first black speaker of the Michigan House. In Detroit and nearby suburbs, an African American is going to be representing this district for the first time in Washington. And in Michigan\u2019s 12th<\/sup> Congressional District, incumbent Democrat Rashida Tlaib, who is Palestinian American, will be representing her newly configured district.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn Colorado, the Citizens Redistricting Board meeting for the first time drew a Congressional district with a 40% Latino population. \u201cAnd that district, the Congressional 8th<\/sup>, elected for the first time a Latina representative to be part of the Congressional Colorado delegation,\u201d Feng said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s significant to note that in each of these states there has been tremendous participation by communities of color to come out and talk about where those communities are, to talk about the growth, and to make sure that the lines are truly reflective of those communities,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Feng drew a sharp comparison between the growth of Latino populations in Texas and the black population in Florida. \u201cThose communities were sliced and diced up so that the growth was not represented, or the historic representation was essentially dismantled. So, we see a significant difference between the states that have commissions of some form or another and those that do not,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Feng likened redistricting to fixing democracy\u2019s clogged plumbing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t want to know what\u2019s in there. You don\u2019t want to look at it. And when it bursts, it\u2019s a mess. And that\u2019s why you\u2019ve got to fix it before you have that disaster\u2026 and because so many communities participated in redistricting, this time round, we saw a lot of that plumbing get fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Source: Published without changes from Ethic Media Services<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Peter White Despite new laws to keep people from voting and gerrymandering election districts to take away<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3566,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[66,155],"class_list":["post-3565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regular-column","tag-african-american","tag-us-elections"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3567,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3565\/revisions\/3567"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}