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If you can’t win fairly, cheat

If you can’t win fairly, cheat.

That seems to be the Georgia GOP’s approach to elections.

After years enjoying a comfortable majority, Georgia’s GOP leadership is worried several key legislative seats are in peril. Despite Republican victories here and across the country in 2016, metro counties are beginning to trend away from conservatives. In response, Republicans are employing a tried and true tactic: redrawing legislative boundaries and shaping districts to favor their candidates.

House Bill 515, the proposed district rigging law sponsored by disgraced former judge Johnnie Caldwell (R-Thomaston) would, among other changes, shift district lines to protect incumbent state representatives Rich Golick (R-Smyrna) and Brian Strickland (R-McDonough). Both lawmakers won close victories in districts easily won by Hillary Clinton.

Now, conservatives are trying to change the rules to make it impossible for them to lose.

The manipulated maps — which were not made available to the public before the hearing — show that the Georgia GOP is carving out African-American and minority voters to prop up Republican candidates who they know can’t win a fair election.

     

The GOP’s push to rig Georgia’s election maps is in direct response to the party’s very real fears about losing seats that they once considered to be safely Republican. Instead of standing up to Trump by promoting a platform of inclusion and progress, Ga. Republicans prefer to cheat voters by redrawing voting maps that unfairly benefit themselves.

Letting politicians manipulate voting maps is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. Politicians in power shouldn’t be allowed to draw voting maps that benefit themselves. We need to reform the rules and create a fair system so that voters are choosing the politicians, instead of politicians choosing their voters.

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