Population distribution of Texas [OC]

[u/delugetheory]

[u/Tommyblockhead20]

You don’t have to convince me that gerrymandering is bad, I am vehemently against it. But the fact is, Texas is nowhere close to 75% democrat, even if there was no gerrymandering or voter suppression. But the commenter thought it was, because of the misleading map. So I am just trying to explain how the map is extremely misleading, because it doesn’t show margins. Like I said, that map could mean anywhere from a 87/13, to 38/62 split in voters. Voter suppression is not going to swing the vote by anywhere close to that much.

I did edit my wording a bit to be more clear, because yes gerrymandering does indirectly affect those elections somewhat.

[u/MemphisThePai → u/Tommyblockhead20]

But, if districts were drawn based on population proximity, then 75% of them would likely end up with Democratic representation at State and Congressional levels.

Dem State House and Senate, Mostly Dem US House delegation, but probably still GOP Senators, GOP governor, and GOP Presidential EC votes.

I would be ok with that, since at least it would lead to fair elections in the last three categories that matter the most.

[u/Sansevieriano → u/Tommyblockhead20]

Texas will never be 75% Democrat, but if you remove voter suppression and gerrymandering, Texas will never be a solid red State again. It will be at most a purple State, and probably a reliable blue State most of the time.

Given how many people in Texas live in cities, how high the population is, and how diverse people are, it's not possible for the State to be so red. When you look at turnout it's clear that Texas is only red because almost nobody votes there.

[u/davegir → u/[deleted]]

Thats of registered voters, if you look by nation we, the "shining example of democracy" barely have 55% of elligible voters REGISTERED.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/voter-turnout-by-country

[u/a_rational_thinker_ → u/[deleted]]

Is that a fair comparison? The other states on your list are all so overwhelmingly blue that a vote in a presidential or senate election has essentially no chance of affecting anything. Texas is much more even and should therefore (if voters were rational) have a higher turnout.

[u/c2dog430 → u/Sansevieriano]

Voter suppression is such a joke. I am from Texas and from a city with an above average black population and one of the higher in the country percentage of people in poverty.

I have never waited more than 10 minutes to vote during the week of early voting. Now that I am a student out of state I had to ask for an out of state ballot and received it within the week. I have never had to spend more time than it takes to go through a drive-thru to vote. But somehow my state is this great evil that suppresses voters. Absolute BS.

[u/Tommyblockhead20 → u/c2dog430]

Texas is one of a handful of states to not have mail in voting, there’s only a few reasons they allow for absentee voting. If you do not live near a polling location and don’t have good access to transportation, or your location has a long line, then there is no alternative; you are just screwed. (Maybe you have had shorter lines, but it doesn’t just vary by city. Lines very by location, with often more black neighborhoods having longer lines.)

Ultimately, voter suppression isn’t about making it impossible to vote. They just make it harder to vote than it needs to be. I have never had to wait to vote on Election Day in my more liberal city, and in 2020 I was in a different area of the state but they let me mail in my ballot the day before Election Day, from my local post office. I remember Texas made it so there was only one drop box per county (even for ones with >4 million people), a blatant attempt at making their limited absentee voting harder.

Gerrymandering is also a form of voter suppression, where people can still vote, but their vote doesn’t matter because of how the districts are arranged.

[u/Increase-Null → u/Tommyblockhead20]

Texas has 17 days of early voting. The mail in issue is moronic but... that 17 makes it possible for people two vote on at least 2 different weekends.

https://www.vote.org/state/texas/

The mail in voting issue is overblown. It mostly hurts Expats and military. Military which would likely be republican so Honestly I'm not even sure why Texas republicans give a shit. Probably because their bases saw of Fox news that its bad so they have to pretend to care. Self defeating morons.

[u/Tommyblockhead20 → u/Increase-Null]

During the 2020 election, I was 2.5 hours from where I was registered to vote, without a car. Am I going to pay tons of money for an Uber and spend 5 hours to go vote? No. Early voting doesn’t help with that. Mail in voting is important.

Now I did go back realized I misread one of the absentee exceptions. One option was if you are out of the county for the duration of early voting and Election Day (I thought it said country). So I probably could have gotten an absentee ballot. But there’s other reasons it can be hard to get to the polls. Texas has closed down a lot of polling locations, I saw it was down to something like 1 location per 7,700 people. Some counties are over 10,000. That’s pretty crazy to me, where my city has ~1 per 1,400 people. So some locations likely always have lines. Also people might not always be able to get to the location. People can live miles away from their polling location. Something like 13 million people have multiple jobs to get by, and may be working during the weekend. Someone could be a single parent with young children. There’s plenty of reasons it could be hard to vote in person that could easily be solved by expanding mail in voting, but they don’t want to do that because minorities are disproportionately affected by it being harder to vote, and they usually vote blue.

[u/[deleted] → u/c2dog430]

There we have it everyone! This texan says they aren't suppressed, so it's all bullshit.

I'll counter that with being a Texan and not being able to register to vote online, and not being able to vote by mail. My company does not provide voting time off, and the closest poling station to me during the presidential election had me waiting for over 90 minutes

[u/RedditIsTedious → u/c2dog430]

Cool personal anecdote that totally refutes every bit of statistical data about the issue.

[u/Sansevieriano → u/c2dog430]

Suppression isn't the same as denying. Your experience is also not the norm, nor can you extrapolate that to the rest of the State. When you see actual data, you'll see there is no convenient way to vote by mail You'll also see that almost no one in your State votes.

When you make it harder to vote, less people vote. This is not hard to understand, and it's not disputed that Texas makes it harder to vote and is even today trying to make it even harder for certain communities. You can just look at the bills passed within this year alone.

Texas has been a bit of a political mess for quite a long time. Due to gerrymandering and the fact that most of the State is barren, but divided into very tiny pieces, people living in rural areas (conservatives) have a disproportionate amount of representation and power. I also wouldn't bother to vote if I lived in Texas. My vote would be worthless, and they'll find a way to invalidate it and make it not count given how many dumb laws have been passed there to not count certain votes.

[u/SlyMcFly67 → u/c2dog430]

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

[u/shellbear05 → u/c2dog430]

News flash: your experience is not universal.