Florida Citizens Your GOP Has Reduced Your National Electoral Rights to 1.6/5ths of a Human Being

Not all of Florida's Dangerous Creatures Live in the Swamps.
A lot of them hang around Tallahassee much of the year.

Florida's GOP state representatives and their fat cat backers have made a Florida citizen's vote worth less than that attributed to an Antebellum slave.

The recent election has exposed many states broken political system by which the wealthy have bought up the votes and the power in the GOP party and are using them to destroy democracy so they can enslave Americans, enrich and empower themselves, and even start new wars as business ventures, without worrying about the backlash from people seeing their children dragged out of their homes to face Iran's chemical and biological weapons when the Universal Draft plan, that is already set up, is triggered.

We found a Florida citizen's worth by calculating Florida's US House districts won by each party in the 2012 election and then compared that with the state-wide vote for the presidential race.  In this case we could have also compared it with the state-wide race for senator which would have made it look even worse as Democratic candidate  for senate, Ben Nelson, got 55.2% of the vote compared to Connie Mack's 42.2% while Obama got 50% compared to 49.1% for Mitt Romney.

That being said, Obama weighted Florida's US House results less than other states that went for him and Romney's win in Louisiana reduced the effects of the GOP result in Louisiana.

To the left you will see the FL counties that went for each presidential candidate.  Notice that counties tend to be blocked out either in  rectangular forms or following natural or community lines.

On the other hand Florida's US House Districts are more imaginative, some even getting downright snaky, both a result of the desire of the majority of the GOP packed Florida state legislature drawing lines to make more Republican seats in the US House of  Representatives. The 5th district is like a cobra dancing to the flute of an East Indian charmer with a gourd flute. Harder to see is the 27th House district that is almost pinched in two by FL 26 which you can see on the original map where the districts lighten when you roll over them.  A very valuable beach area was protected from inclusion within two heavily democratic areas that would more sensibly be cut into three more balanced districts making them more competitive.

Another illustration is  found up in the blue snake near the top of the state.

Florida's 5th is likely to be a district protected by the Civil Rights Act, but the incumbent and winner Corinne Brown was in the 3rd district before the post 2010 redistricting.  Her win increased  from 63% to 70% while one neighboring district this year was won by a Republican with only 57% of the vote, showing that at least one Democrat majority district was likely torn up and stuffed into multiple Republican majority districts a well as part going into the 5th.  I don't have the full information on the neighboring districts, and Gerrymandering tricks make it difficult for someone without full information on demographics of the state that only the state legislature may have to do the work.

The Gerrymandering of the US House districts should be seen as a scandal worse than Watergate though that phrase is overused elsewhere.  So lets just leave it described as making Florida's citizen's into 1.6 5ths of a person or worth a little over 1/2 of the value of a slave before he or she was released by Lincolns proclamation over 150 years ago.

Feeling free now Florida? Or are you ready to tackle the bad governance you are getting from your state legislature and Governor.  The good news is that the US Supreme Court decided that Texas could redistrict itself after the 2002 election less than 2 years after the 2000 census based redistricting.  The bad news is that your state legislature is still controlled by the GOP.  So you are going to have to go for a statewide citizen's referendum, however that works with your laws.

Contact local Democrats and tell them you want your rights back.  Talk to your neighbors and friends on and off the Internet and tell them about what you've learned.  Tell them they are worth only 1.6 5ths of a person because of the state's Republicans and that you need that fixed to keep fat cats from stealing from everyone.  Republicans are not immune from this lack of electoral rights since if a person cannot change their mind and retain his or her voting rights rights, he or she does not have them in the first place.  If  Republicans can't stop the GOP from declaring war and starting a draft they don't have any more power than you to save themselves, their children, or grandchildren. And the people cannot stop their legislators from voting for harm to them or their families if those legislators are protected by Gerrymandering.

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Picture above used via Creative Commons License Attribution (CC by 2.0) thanks to Flickr user WalterPro4755 who has no connection to this blog or blogger.