Once-secret files from gerrymandering strategist show GOP misled court, group claims

Continuing the common theme of Republicans denying people their voting rights, a dead GOP strategist's files reveal evidence that the party lied in court to prevent a special election ordered by the court to resolve the underepresentation issues caused by their racially gerrymandered maps.

In 2017, after the Supreme Court affirmed that North Carolina’s GOP-drawn districts were illegally built around race, the state’s Republican leaders told a federal court they couldn’t quickly craft new boundaries in time for a special election later that year. They hadn’t yet started “the laborious process” of creating maps, they said, and still needed to talk to voters.

The court bought the argument, giving the state GOP nearly another year with a supermajority — an advantage it used to appoint judges and push constitutional amendments.

But a trove of once-secret documents from a strategist behind Republican gerrymandering efforts proves that argument was false, a watchdog group claimed in a Thursday court filing. In fact, that strategist, Thomas Hofeller, had already drawn up numerous maps and completed 97 percent of a plan for proposed state Senate districts and 90 percent of a House plan.

The claims are the latest fallout from an extraordinary cache of documents — more than 75,000 files on four hard drives and 18 thumb drives — discovered by Hofeller’s estranged daughter after his death in August. Stephanie Hofeller later turned the documents over to Common Cause, a nonprofit advocacy group battling gerrymandering.

https://beta.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/07/once-secret-files-gerrymandering-strategist-show-gop-misled-court-watchdog-group-claims

@mattbbpl: Sounds like this guy’s daughter wanted 15 minutes of fame. Shady source, nothing to see here folks.

@n64dd: Have you read the details about how they were obtained?

Prove it.

Until shown otherwise this pretty much lines up with what we know about the GOP and gerrymandering.

Strange how people are worried about this and not the 10-30 million illegal immigrants in the country.

Yeah, let's not worry ourselves about a major political party persistently undermining the country's democracy.

@zaryia:

Washington Post - known trump hater

"Last month, those files suggested that Hofeller had helped the Trump administration orchestrate the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, while arguing the move would create an electoral advantage for “Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.” The Trump administration has denied Hofeller played a role in the change, which is pending before the Supreme Court"

Files suggestes? How?

How does a question in census even benefit a selective party?

What is the actual question in mention?

1. Half of that population is from Visa overstays.

2. They don't sway the vote. Gerrymandering does. Big time.

It's not strange at all that people worry about something that has a larger negative impact.

I'm sorry if the facts make Trump look negative. That being said this isn't solely from WaPo.

Uhhh....

A longtime Republican operative urged Trump administration officials to add a question to the 2020 census form that hasn’t been asked since the Jim Crow era, knowing full well that including this question “would clearly be a disadvantage to the Democrats” and “advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites,” according to a document filed in federal court on Thursday.

Despite the Trump administration’s insistence that it wants to add the question for better voting rights enforcement rather than political gain, key wording in its legal rationale matches memos written by Tom Hofeller, a Republican gerrymandering expert.

Are you serious right now?

In North Carolina, after Republican successes in the 2010 election, Hofeller helped draw new maps that netted the party 10 of the state's 13 congressional seats, despite the popular vote in that state being nearly even.

Hofeller also knew the key to success in this niche field was protecting against lawsuits. He spent 10 PowerPoint slides in a presentation he gave about redistricting in 2011 just on legal issues and privacy.

"Treat every statement and document as if it was going to appear on the FRONT PAGE of your local newspaper," he implored on one slide. "Emails are the tool of the devil."

An unpublished 2015 report, authored by Hofeller, concluded that adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census would produce data that would help redraw political maps "advantageous to Republican and Non-Hispanic Whites."

That's literally the only reason they are doing it. Everyone with half a brain knew it, now it's confirmed straight from the horses mouth.

There is no debating this.

So. Is a potential consequence of this that laws pushed through by a super majority in North Carolina in 2017 are reversed?

So the files match rationally memos written by Tom Hofeller and that means that the he did play a role in the change? How so? people have similar opinions all the time to others, especially if they are in the same political party.

How does a citizenship question redraw political maps?

And what's the question in mention?

I'm not pro trump nor not not pro trump. I just trying to make sense of it all.

The files show that GOP lied in court among other things.

So because other problems exist it's okay to stop Americans from voting?

@zaryia: They run hit pieces on Trump every day. Nothing new.

@npiet1: You're focusing on a story from several days ago that the article briefly mentions because they share the same source of information. Most, if not all, of your questions are answered in the thread below and the sources mentioned there.

https://www.gamespot.com/forums/political-gamers-909409192/dead-gop-strategist-citizenship-question-added-to--33460582/

This isn't just a hit piece on WaPo.

Several outlets are reporting on these computer files. Please talk about that data instead of WaPo.

I assume you are deflecting becuase they are indefensible.

I answered all of those questions as does the several articles on this.

Trump administration officials "concealed" a Republican redistricting strategist's role in the effort to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census, the American Civil Liberties Union alleged in a court filing Thursday.

New evidence obtained in a separate gerrymandering lawsuit brought by advocacy group Common Cause revealed that the strategist, Thomas Hofeller, “played a significant role in orchestrating the addition of the citizenship question,” the ACLU said.

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.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/us/census-citizenship-question-hofeller.html

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-census-redistricting-insight/republicans-want-census-data-on-citizenship-for-redistricting-idUSKCN1RK18D

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/30/republican-redistricting-census-1489667

Please just read them for yourself.

@zaryia: Or, even better, discuss it in the thread focusing on that story which didn't even have time to leave the front page.

Nice story but a lot of assumptions.

But it´s not going to change the facts that both democrats and republicans use dirty methods but this story does not prove anything conclusive

So these files does not prove that GOP did misled the court?

Inconclusive , while you may hear some on a specific side say otherwise

These files is so far not released so we can get a chance to judge for ourselves.

There's hedging language going on because it's involved in a court case, but the data is all right there. It is public record that the GOP made claims in court that they couldn't hold the court mandated special election because they hadn't started the laborious process of redistricting without the racial gerrymander in place earlier than July of 2017. The files received from Hofeller indicate that the required maps were nearly complete at that time.

According to a new legal filing, these materials reveal Hofeller had completed more than 97 percent of the new Senate plan and 90 percent of the new House plan by June 2017. In other words, Republicans allegedly lied to the federal district court. In July 2017, GOP lawmakers claimed that they had prepared no maps and therefore could not draw new districts in time for a special election—when, in reality, those maps were nearly finished.

Common Cause accused Republicans of lying about their use of racial data in redistricting. Because it was fixing a racial gerrymander, the district court ordered that data “identifying the race of individuals or voters shall not be used in the drawing of legislative districts in the 2017 House and Senate plans.” Republicans told the court that “data regarding the race of voters was not used in the drawing of the districts, and, in fact, was not even loaded into the computer used by the map drawer to construct the districts.” They added that “we have not had and do not have racial data on any of these districts” and “there was no racial data reviewed in the preparation of this map.”

The Hofeller files reveal, Common Cause wrote, “that none of the above statements were true.” In fact, his computer seems to have had data “regarding the racial composition of the proposed districts for each and every iteration of his draft maps.” Hofeller even displayed the black voting age population in some draft maps, and “had racial data on the draft districts in Excel spreadsheets.” As Republicans swore to a court that they would not incorporate racial data—not even look at such data—their mapmaker was, the evidence shows, doing exactly that.

Also lots of facts. Damning ones.

Btw it's not even the main story, there are several more detailed ones on this matter.

The GOP does gerrymandering much more, and to greater effect. This isn't really questioned,

http://election.princeton.edu/2012/12/30/gerrymanders-part-1-busting-the-both-sides-do-it-myth/

https://www.businessinsider.com/partisan-gerrymandering-has-benefited-republicans-more-than-democrats-2017-6

https://www.vox.com/midterm-elections/2018/11/7/18071560/2018-midterm-elections-democrats-gerrymandering

The story just further proves what we know. This isn't the only case of a Republican slipping up and saying they gerrymander and why they gerrymander.

@mattbbpl: the bigger problem is lack of privacy and money in politics. You're worried about gerrymandering (which both parties are engaged in) when our politicians are puppets bought and paid for or blackmailed because their communications are exposed.

While I agree that money needs to be abolished in politics we can work on multiple things at once just as we always have. I can not excuse a major political party systematically watering down minority votes. Seriously, **** anyone who thinks that's OK.

It seems like the changes made by people (in the government) who do so through illegal means always stay in place. The people who did the illegal things may lose their jobs, sometimes going to jail, but the changes they make usually remain, the people seem to be too apathetic to actually undo what was done.

US is so up in arms about punishing people who break the law. But only if it is substance abuse or killing others it seems. There has to be punishment for things like this.

That's their only game plan now. They can't appeal to the majority of Americans anymore so they resort to lying, cheating, and stealing.

LOL

is it? is it really?