NEW YORK – An appeals court decreed this Thursday that the state of New York must redesign its electoral map in view of the next legislative elections in the United States, agreeing with the Democratic Party, which in the last elections was harmed by this distribution and ended up losing control of the House of Representatives.
The decision marks another step in the protracted legal battle between Democrats and Republicans over the distribution of electoral districts in New York, a progressive bastion but in which conservatives made important progress in the last elections.
The current map had been drawn up by independent experts at the request of a judge, who had struck down an earlier redrawing that clearly favored Democrats.
The new distribution, with which it was sought to boost competition, helped the Republicans win four seats that were important to win a majority in the Lower House of Congress.
Now, with the decision of the appeals court, that map will have to be redrawn and the Democrats, who control the state Legislature, would have the ability to decide on it.
The Republicans, meanwhile, have already advanced that they will appeal this ruling before the highest court in the state of New York.
That court ruled last year against the Democrats for the redesign they had made in the face of the latest legislatures, considering that they had violated the state Constitution by using the tactic known as “gerrymandering”, the capricious drawing of electoral maps to favor the interests of one side, sometimes creating districts with strange shapes that make it possible to concentrate or separate the votes of certain minorities or groups.
Traditionally, the Democratic Party has been the one that has most criticized the use by the Republicans of this strategy in a good part of the country, but in the case of New York the roles were reversed and it was the Republicans who accused their rivals of ignore voter rights and seek only to consolidate their power.
Unlike what happens in other states, in New York “gerrymandering” is prohibited after a decision approved in 2014.
2023-07-13 19:57:50
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