Dead GOP Strategist: Citizenship Question Added to Rig Elections

The Trump administration concealed evidence that its proposal to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 U.S. census was intended to help Republicans draw favorable electoral maps, according to immigrant advocacy groups that sued the administration over the question last year.

In a filing in Manhattan federal court on Thursday, the groups said that the administration hid the fact during the course of the lawsuit that went to trial last year that Thomas Hofeller, a longtime Republican specialist on drawing electoral districts, played a "significant role" in planning the citizenship question.

The conservative-majority Supreme Court is due to issue a final ruling by the end of June on whether the question can be added in time for next year's census.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-census-gerrymandering-idUSKCN1T01WN

"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy."

What a clusterf***!

I don't see them as working for a democracy at all.

Soo GOP = white power?

The GOP is an anti-democratic party. There's no arguing it anymore. They're trying to wrest political control of a changing demographic by cheating, stealing, and lying.

Never really understood why people are against this questions being asked. Its a legitimate question, especially since funding is based on the numbers.

Since one of the things the Census determines is how many representatives each area gets, people are afraid the question will discourage immigrants (legal or not) from filling it out, which in the long run could cost them representatives and by extension votes in the Electoral College. Even if we assume zero voter fraud involving non-citizens, immigrants don’t need to have the right to vote in order to influence presidential elections.

Agreed. Everything should be done to limit illegal immigrants ability to influence elections and funding.

@Fuhrer_D: it's specifically being done to

in order to create a structural electoral advantage for, in his own words, ‘Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.’”

Cartoonishly villianous.

in order to create a structural electoral advantage for, in his own words, ‘Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.’”

Any Cons here want to defend the central and main reasoning behind all of this?

Or you all gonna keep side stepping these facts discovered on the GoP HDD?

Do you remember the difference between facts and opinions?

Because so far all i see here is some groups who clearly have a hidden agenda in wanting illegals to vote who feel that a question is supposed to do something else, also the citizenship question is not Trumps idea, it´s been in the books for a long time, Trump´s administration just picked it up.

Also one last question? do you have a problem with only legal Americans voting in our elections?

@Jacanuk: God, I love it when your posts are both condescending and stupid at the same time.

My post is composed of facts from a Reuters article while yours leads off with inferred opinions and then attempts to change the subject.

Read the article again (or, more likely, for the first time) and come to grips with what an evil group of people your party is composed of.

Nothing condescending in that post but I do get why you would think so when it does not agree with your already made up opinion that "orange man bad"

It was not until 2010 there was a change to the Long form questionnaire, while it´s not used for all households, you cannot complain over something that was only just recently removed in error by the Obama administration.

And the question in case you are wondering was

"Is this person a citizen of the United States?"

Which is a pretty relevant question especially considering we have 12mill+ illegals in this country and in places that are huge potential battleground states. Since no one who is a legal American hopefully want anyone non-American to vote.

@Jacanuk said:

Do you remember the difference between facts and opinions?

After a controversial decision by the Department of Commerce to add a question about U.S. citizenship to the 2020 census, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended the move as nothing out of the ordinary.

"This is a question that's been included in every census since 1965," Sanders said Tuesday, "with the exception of 2010, when it was removed."

Conclusion: This statement is inaccurate, incomplete and misleading. A quick history of the decennial survey makes that clear.

See the link below for further details about the mind numbingly stupid propaganda you fell for - 1965 isn't even a census year.

Link

Why would this question be needed at all when you have to register to vote?

Why would a non US citizen get the right to vote anyway?

They don't. Straw man.

@horgen: "Why would this question be needed at all when you have to register to vote?"

It's not. It's completely irrelevant, which has been the pattern lately. It's tiresome.

Given this in the article

According to Thursday’s filing, Hofeller concluded in a 2015 study that asking census respondents whether they are U.S. citizens “would clearly be a disadvantage to the Democrats” and “advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites” in redistricting.

That is clear racial discrimination. Will this really pass? Like is this actually up for discussion?

It's likely that it could which is why this is scary. There are a very real number of racists in this country and our government.

What Hoola said. The Supreme Court has 5 justices who appeared to be leaning this way during oral arguments. Perhaps this evidence will dissuade them, maybe not.

Roberts is pretty concerned with his legacy and the appearance of propriety. The fact that this is now public may be enough to change his mind if only for the sake of his own image.

Doesn't it directly violate other laws? Like the 15th amendment?

It doesn't matter. The buck stops at the Supreme Court, and many justices on this court have been more than willing to argue around such obstacles.

If the Supreme Court says it's fine, it's fine.

Oh dear.

Because in places like California all you need to register is a driving license which does not state if you are a US legal citizen and they are handed out to illegals because of "safety" reasons.

Also not forgetting the rules that allow people to go someone´s house and get them to fill out a ballot and keep them hidden until they are needed.

That question is from 2000 and was removed in 2010 by Obama´s administration, so not sure where you are getting 1965 from?

Also, the Sanders statement is actually correct but have a slight modification which she does not state, which is that the citizen question was only present on the long form questionnaire

So the only one falling for any propaganda is clearly you who also spins the "truth" to fit your narrative that "orange man bad"

@Jacanuk: Wait, are you referring to the sample that's sent to only a small portion of the population?

Look at my previous post in the thread. The Census determines the amount of electoral votes each state gets, and a huge fear is that states that have a lot of immigrants will potentially lose electoral votes if they are afraid to fill out the form (some may be lead to believe that stating that they are not a citizen could result in them being targeted for deportation).

I’m sure that one may try to use this as an excuse to switch to a popular vote since immigrants can affect the amount of electoral votes each state gets but can’t legally vote in presidential elections directly. But regardless of whether or not that ever happens the amount of representatives each state gets are still in play over this.

Shouldn't the amount of electoral votes reflect the number of people living legal in a state?

Those driving licences are not valid as ID for voting or bordering an airplane.

The Census doesn’t ask whether or not you are in the country legally. In theory a few million immigrants in the country illegally filling out the Census could cause the state(s) they are in to get extra Representatives (more power in the House) and electoral votes resulting in a better chance of the state they are in deciding a presidential election even though they aren’t physically voting themselves.

This has a better chance of aiding blue states like California with their sanctuary laws than red states like Texas with their ban on sanctuary cities. That appears to be the main reason why many do not want the question of citizenship being in it. Another huge reason is because even though it isn’t asking your legal status some are afraid the government will put all of the forms with no answers to the side so they can figure out if they are candidates for deportation.

The Census has other important uses such as funding determinations, so it is important that everybody participates. That doesn’t mean we should intentionally avoid asking questions that may be considered controversial just because a few people are afraid their answers will put them on some type of watchlist.

Besides, I wouldn’t mind if someone could post statistics (if they exist) showing how many illegal immigrants fill out the current one rather than avoid it even without the citizenship question because they are trying to stay off of the grid and out of sight of ICE.

Dead Man bad,

"In order to create a structural electoral advantage for, in his own words, ‘Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.’”

Files on those drives showed that he wrote a study in 2015 concluding that adding a citizenship question to the census would allow Republicans to draft even more extreme gerrymandered maps to stymie Democrats. And months after urging President Trump’s transition team to tack the question onto the census, he wrote the key portion of a draft Justice Department letter claiming the question was needed to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act — the rationale the administration later used to justify its decision."*

Instead of having to resort to extreme gerrymandering how about just stop promoting very unpopular policy?

I love it when the right's answer to "you cant trust the government" philosophy is making crucial data irrelevant and making major urban centers guesstimate funding for such things as water supply needs and expected stress to highways and thoroughfares.

Clown World, indeed.

You don't have other methods for gathering data on how many people are living in a state?

Why are you negating that the question was on the censor questionnaire? even though it did only go out to 1 in 6, it should not be needed to go out to more since there is no reason to ask obviously legal citizens that question.

@Jacanuk: So that's a "yes"

No, America has a long line of government scepticism and dislike, also states have their own government so a federally mandated register for all legal citizens would be seen as unconstitutional and also receive a massive backlash.

That is why we have the censor bureau who send out questionnaires.

I mean why are you guys arguing the reasoning behind this when the Dead Dudes files specifically say why?

"In order to create a structural electoral advantage for, in his own words, ‘Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.’”

@zaryia: Because it's damning.

This isn't a surprise to anyone, just one of many times a GOP slipped up and the truth came out.

Has this been determined by the Supreme Court? :P

Melt downs in this thread are crazy.

Yeah, the GOP supporters are having a rough day. I thought you were used to it by now.

@horgen: we won. I think we’re all just fine :)

Stop trolling man.

Why are you trying to argue opinions as facts?

Also, this guys files is this guy files so unless he has a signed declaration from the party HQ with everyone who is GOP in his state´, then this is nothing but a dead guys files who have his thoughts on it.

I get that you love to swing the public opinion court´s name around as the all or nothing, but this is literally a nothing cake from a very well know the far-left source.

@Jacanuk: Now that's a meltdown. Well done!

Dude, stop. You lost this one.

That's not an opinion, that's a DIRECT QUOTE FROM HOFELLER. Those are FACTUALLY the reasoning, as he LITERALLY stated them:

The documents cited in the Thursday court filing include an unpublished August 2015 analysis by Mr. Hofeller, who was hired by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet financially backed by Paul Singer, a billionaire New York hedge fund manager and major Republican donor. Mr. Hofeller’s charge was to assess the impact of drawing political maps that were not based on a state’s total population — the current practice virtually everywhere in the nation — but on a slice of that population: American citizens of voting age.

Mr. Hofeller’s exhaustive analysis of Texas state legislative districts concluded that such maps “would be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites,” and would dilute the political power of the state’s Hispanics.

The reason, he wrote, was that the maps would exclude traditionally Democratic Hispanics and their children from the population count. That would force Democratic districts to expand to meet the Constitution’s one person, one vote requirement. In turn, that would translate into fewer districts in traditionally Democratic areas, and a new opportunity for Republican mapmakers to create even stronger gerrymanders.

I'm not even sure why this is up for debate. Forget the fact we have direct quotes, Hofeller's past is filled with trying to gerrymander. That's his thing.

Next, Republican legislators worked with a team of GOP operatives and redistricting experts led by Tom Hofeller, the party’s chief gerrymander strategist. Holed up in GOP headquarters, using computers owned by the Republican National Committee and software licensed by the Republican Party, this group drew maps designed to entrench Republicans’ legislative power. (The public was not permitted to observe the process, though Pope was.) Hofeller later acknowledged that the plans were “designed to ensure Republican majorities in the House and Senate.”

Cheat! Cheat! Cheat! Fun for the whole family!

Following the 2010 red wave, Hofeller worked with the RNC to develop Project REDMAP, a sweeping initiative to help GOP-controlled state houses build durable gerrymanders. He taught lawmakers how to use racial and partisan data to dilute Democratic votes. His maps preserved Republicans’ House majority over the next three elections and maintained GOP domination over most state legislatures.

Surely he's just some Dead Dude who had no impact and just wrote silly "thoughts" on his PC! Duuur hurrr.

Opinion.

Post 2016 political tribalism is just off the rails. People say the dumbest shit.