Although President Trump won the state by a narrow margin, GOP candidates in down-ballot races in Michigan won across the board, adding further to their large majority in the State Legislature. According to a new test conducted by Bridge Magazine, GOP candidates succeed in Michigan despite relatively equal support for both parties because of gerrymandered districts. The test, titled the “efficiency gap,” calculates how many votes are “wasted” when a certain party draws district lines in their favor. Wasted votes are those cast for the candidate that didn’t win and those cast for the winning candidate beyond the number they needed to win.
The difference in wasted votes between the two parties divided by the total number of votes yields the advantage of a certain party as a percentage. The calculation assumes a party will pack its voters into as few seats as possible and dilute the opposing party across multiple districts.
According to the test, the efficiency gap found Michigan Republicans to be favored by 10.1 percent in the state House and 15.5 percent in Congress during the 2016 elections.
Nicholas Stephanopoulos, the University of Chicago law professor who created the efficiency gap standards, said in an interview with Bridge Magazine Michigan’s numbers are unusually high. “It’s quite clear that Michigan is just as extreme an example as Wisconsin,” he said.
Full Article: Michigan gerrymandering seriously impacts voting, according to new test | The Michigan Daily.