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California voted overwhelmingly to redraw its electoral districts Tuesday, in a poll Democrats called to counter efforts by US President Donald Trump to gerrymander in Republican states.
Early results showed a large majority in the traditionally liberal state voted in favor of a motion that was widely promoted as an opportunity to “stick it to Trump”.
Voters approved of Proposition 50 by a margin of two-to-one, early official results showed, with major media outlets projecting it would retain a significant majority when the final tally is counted.
The result is a big win for Governor Gavin Newsom, who is increasingly staking his claim to leadership of the Democratic Party on his willingness to stand up to Trump.
“We’re proud of the work that the people of the state of California did tonight to send a powerful message to … the most historically unpopular president in modern history,” Newsom said as the results came in.
Newsom and his allies asked voters to approve a temporary re-drawing of electoral districts that could give the Democratic Party five more seats in the scramble for control of the US Congress in next year’s midterm elections.
Republicans complained it was a power grab that would disenfranchise the party’s voters in California.
Democrats said they were simply trying to level the playing field after Texas Republicans pushed through their own redistricting – under White House pressure – to help maintain a narrow Congressional majority that has so far given Trump carte blanche.
Read moreTexas lawmakers approve new electoral map designed to secure Trump’s hold on Congress
“Donald Trump is under water. He promised to make us healthier. He promised to make us wealthier. We’re sicker and poorer, and he understands that,” Newsom said.
“Why else is he trying to rig the midterm elections before one single vote is even cast?”
‘RIGGED’
TV commercials for the “Yes” campaign gleefully imagined an irate Trump watching the results on television as he rambled incoherently and threw French fries at the screen.
The president – whose enmity towards California has been a recurring theme in his decade in national politics – was clearly annoyed by the ballot initiative.
“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump wrote on social media Tuesday, without offering any evidence.
US electoral districts are traditionally drawn following the national census taken every 10 years, theoretically so the electoral map reflects the people who live there.
In reality, most boundaries are party political decisions, so whichever grouping is in power at the time gets to set the rules for the next decade’s contests.
California did away with such partisan gerrymandering under former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, giving the power instead to an independent panel – one of a small number of states to do so.
If Tuesday’s results are confirmed, politically drawn boundaries will take effect for all elections until the next census, when the panel will once again determine the maps.
Read moreDemocrats sweep key races in early test of Trump-era politics
The vote is “a political ink-blot test”, Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Barabak wrote Monday.
“A reasoned attempt to even things out in response to Texas’ attempt to nab five more congressional seats. Or a ruthless gambit to drive the California GOP to near-extinction.
“What many California voters see depends on, politically, where they stand.”
People at the polls in Los Angeles on Tuesday said the vote was about fighting back against Republican shenanigans elsewhere in the country.
“I’ll take anything we can get, anything we can get. We got to sometimes use the methods they’re using, whatever will get us moving forward,” Casey Mason said.
Makela Yepez said he was not particularly pleased that the state’s independent boundary commission was taking a temporary back seat, but felt the ends justified the means.
“I think we’re using the tools that are at our disposal, and I think we have to have faith that it’s going to work,” he said.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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