Member Since: 1/1/2014
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North Carolina no longer considered full democracy
By a famed political scientist
Quote:
So when he says a country or region’s electoral procedures and government structure fall short of democratic standards, he speaks from no small amount of experience. And so it’s notable that, this past Friday, he declared that his state of North Carolina “can no longer be classified as a full democracy.”
He cites a number of factors, including entrenched gerrymandering that has guaranteed Republicans a veto-proof legislative majority despite winning a "tiny advantage in the popular vote." But specific problems that have arisen in 2016 have further damaged the state's legitimacy, notably the legislature's efforts to strip the governor of a number of different powers in the wake of Democratic candidate Roy Cooper's election.
“When, in response to losing the governorship, one party uses its legislative dominance to take away significant executive power, it is a direct attack upon the separation of powers that defines American democracy,” he writes in Raleigh’s News & Observer newspaper. “When a wounded legislative leadership, and a lame-duck executive, force through draconian changes with no time for robust review and debate it leaves Carolina no better than the authoritarian regimes we look down upon.”
North Carolina’s score is 58 out of 100, slightly above Cuba (56) and Indonesia (57) and below Rwanda (64) and Georgia (59).
“If it were a nation state, North Carolina would rank right in the middle of the global league table — a deeply flawed, partly free democracy that is only slightly ahead of the failed democracies that constitute much of the developing world,” Reynolds concludes.
Particularly poor is North Carolina's performance on voter registration and districting issues. Gerrymandering in the state is so bad that, "when it comes to the integrity of the voting district boundaries no country has ever received as low a score as the 7/100 North Carolina received,” Reynolds writes. “North Carolina is not only the worst state in the USA for unfair districting but the worst entity in the world ever analyzed by the Electoral Integrity Project.”
Norris, Garnett, and Grömping note that “states controlled by Democrats usually had significantly greater electoral integrity than Republican-controlled states, across all stages
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http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politi...ence-democracy
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