Gerrymandering and voter suppression aren’t clever political strategies; they’re the termites eating away at America’s wooden beams. The house still looks pretty from the outside, but inside the joists are hollow. From Elbridge Gerry’s salamander-shaped district in 1812 to the modern algorithm-driven map wars, democracy has been rigged, rerigged, and then shrink-wrapped for partisan advantage. Republicans have turned suppression into an art form, while Democrats have tried to play nice. But niceties don’t win knife fights. The real question is whether fighting fire with fire could finally push the Supreme Court to outlaw the matchbox altogether.

In This Article

• How gerrymandering became America’s oldest voter manipulation tactic
• Why Republicans mastered voter suppression and Democrats hesitated
• The risks of Democrats entering a suppression arms race
• Why the Supreme Court holds the ultimate key to reform
• How breaking fear-based politics could save American democracy

Gerrymandering and Voter Suppression: The Rigged Game Destroying Democracy

by Robert Jennings, InnerSelf.com

The Salamander That Never Died 

Let’s rewind to 1812. Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts signed off on a district so twisted it resembled a salamander. The Boston Gazette coined the term “gerrymander,” and the beast has slithered through American politics ever since. It didn’t matter whether the politicians wore powdered wigs or polyester suits; the goal was the same: rig the rules before the game started.

Americans like to tell themselves we invented democracy 2.0. The reality? We also invented cheating 101. Gerrymandering became the cheat code that allowed politicians to maintain power regardless of how the votes actually shook out. It’s the political equivalent of a casino that smiles at you while quietly rigging the roulette wheel.

Now that salamander has evolved, not under a microscope, but via Photoshop and political will. Take Texas, for example. In mid-2025, Republican lawmakers rushed through a mid-decade redistricting map, aimed squarely at boosting GOP control, in the middle of a decade. By dismantling Democratic strongholds in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and South Texas, the map hands Republicans potentially five additional congressional seats.

Democrats tried to stop it, walking out of the legislature in classic quorum-breaking fashion, forcing extended debates, and staging dramatic protests. But it wasn’t enough. The Texas Senate passed the map 18–11, shutting down a planned filibuster just after midnight. Shouts of “shame” and “fascist” echoed as the vote went through.

Then California responded. Governor Gavin Newsom dashed off a political salvo: a ballot measure, Proposition 50, designed to redraw congressional maps to favor Democrats, as a direct counterpunch.

This move has triggered a high-stakes showdown: labor unions and Democratic groups have thrown millions behind the push, including over $9 million in grassroots donations within a week.

Barack Obama has weighed in, calling Newsom’s plan a “smart, measured response” to Texas’s power grab, not exactly “going high,” but definitely going calculated.

So now our salamander isn’t alone, it's surrounded by a battalion of salamanders, each redrawing the battlefield for 2026. What was once an isolated cheat code has become a full-fledged map war, with states trading partisan blows through legislative sabotage and counter-aggression, and the courts ready to referee with ever-increasing stakes.

Rigging for Power, Not People

The great irony of gerrymandering is that it thrives in a nation that worships “one person, one vote.” The Supreme Court endorsed that principle in the 1960s, but politicians found a way around it. Instead of denying you a ballot outright, they simply diluted your ballot’s worth. Your vote counted, technically, but not enough to matter.

Fast forward to the modern era: computers now draw maps with surgical precision. Voters are divided or grouped together, not based on geography or community, but on algorithms that predict their political leanings. It’s political science as weaponry. Republicans saw the potential early on, launching projects like REDMAP in 2010 that flipped statehouses red and secured congressional advantages even when Democrats won the majority of votes nationwide.

The playbook was significantly enhanced after the 2020 census. With a fresh batch of population data in hand, GOP-controlled legislatures in states like Texas, Florida, Ohio, Georgia, and Wisconsin redrew their maps with ruthless efficiency. Texas carved up booming urban centers like Austin, Houston, and Dallas to make sure new growth among young and diverse voters didn’t translate into more Democratic seats.

Florida’s legislature and Governor Ron DeSantis went so far as to bulldoze districts that gave Black voters representation, ensuring a Republican-friendly map that cemented GOP dominance in Congress.

Ohio’s maps were drawn so brazenly in favor of Republicans that even the state’s own Supreme Court called them unconstitutional, multiple times. Yet, thanks to delays, legal loopholes, and a dash of political stubbornness, those same maps were used anyway in the 2022 and 2024 elections.

In Wisconsin, Republicans redrew legislative districts so thoroughly that the party could win less than half of the statewide vote and still claim near-total control of the state assembly. Georgia, too, sliced and diced Atlanta’s growing Democratic vote into safe Republican suburbs, insulating incumbents from competition and robbing voters of meaningful choice.

These weren’t subtle tweaks; they were full-scale fortifications. The new maps ensured that in many of these states, general elections became meaningless. The only real contest occurred in the Republican primaries, where candidates vied to see who could be the most extreme. This has been the hidden consequence of gerrymandering: not just tilting the playing field, but bulldozing it entirely so moderation has no chance of survival.

By 2024, political analysts estimated that Republican gerrymanders gave the GOP an edge of at least 16 House seats nationwide. In a chamber where power often comes down to a handful of votes, that’s the difference between majority and minority. In other words, the maps, not the voters, picked who governed America.

Voter Suppression as the Twin Brother

Gerrymandering rarely works alone. Its evil twin is voter suppression. Closing polling places in minority neighborhoods, demanding IDs you don’t need to buy a gun, purging voter rolls with all the finesse of a chainsaw, these are not accidents. They’re carefully engineered hurdles designed to keep certain Americans in the back of the line or off the rolls entirely.

Republicans excel at suppression because their coalition is shrinking. Demographics are destiny, and younger, more diverse voters are less likely to choose them. So rather than adapt their policies, they adapt the rules. Fear-based politics thrives on shrinking the pool of participants. It’s the strategy of the insecure: when you can’t win fair, cheat smarter.

One of the dirtiest tricks in the suppression playbook is something called “voter caging.” It sounds like a birdwatching hobby, but in reality, it’s a cynical operation to purge voters en masse. The tactic involves sending out mass mailings, often to voters in minority-heavy districts, low-income neighborhoods, or areas with high student populations.

If the mail is returned undeliverable, the party running the scheme compiles a “caging list”. It uses it to challenge those voters’ registrations, arguing they’ve moved or no longer qualify. In practice, it disproportionately targets the poor, renters, and minorities, groups less likely to vote Republican.

Caging isn’t new. Republicans have been caught using it for decades. In 1981, the Republican National Committee hired off-duty police officers to stand at polling sites in New Jersey’s minority neighborhoods, intimidating voters under the banner of a so-called “Ballot Security Task Force.” Lawsuits uncovered that GOP operatives had mailed tens of thousands of letters to predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods and tried to strike the names of voters whose letters bounced back.

Courts slapped the RNC with a consent decree in 1982, banning them from engaging in such ballot security operations for decades. That decree only expired in 2018, just in time for the Trump era, when every rusty old suppression tool was dusted off and sharpened.

Since then, voter caging has resurfaced in the arsenal. Lawsuits have emerged in states such as Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina, where partisan operatives attempted to use returned mail or unreliable data to purge voter rolls. The danger is not that the tactic is widespread at the moment; it’s that the infrastructure to deploy it on a massive scale now exists.

With the expiration of that 1982 consent decree, there’s no longer a federal leash restraining the national party. And with today’s digital tools, lists can be generated with frightening efficiency.

Looking forward, many voting rights advocates warn that caging could explode in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election. Why? Because Republicans are already laying the groundwork. They’ve passed laws in several states making it easier for partisan poll watchers and operatives to challenge voters at the polls. Combine that with AI-driven data mining and national mail campaigns, and you’ve got the potential for caging operations that dwarf anything we saw in the 1980s or early 2000s.

In other words, we’re on the cusp of suppression 2.0. If gerrymandering is the rigged map, then caging is the rigged roll call, a way to shrink the electorate before the first vote is even cast. If left unchecked, caging could become the defining feature of the 2026 and 2028 elections, stripping hundreds of thousands of voters from the rolls in closely contested states. And once again, the burden will fall hardest on those who already face the steepest climb just to cast a ballot.

The Future of Democracy in America Is At Stake

Here’s where Democrats enter the tragedy. For decades, they’ve clung to the belief that norms and institutions would somehow protect democracy. While Republicans treated politics like a street fight, Democrats showed up in choir robes hoping for a hymn.

The result has been a structural disadvantage in Congress and state legislatures, regardless of the number of votes they tally. It is the price of bringing a prayer book to a knife fight. Meanwhile, Republicans wrote the rules in disappearing ink, redrawing districts and tightening ballots until competition became a joke.

No wonder the progressive base is restless. Why keep playing by Marquess of Queensberry rules when the other guy is swinging brass knuckles? The temptation to retaliate, by drawing brutal maps of their own, by instituting aggressive registration rules, by mirroring suppression tactics, is strong. If the referee refuses to call fouls, maybe it’s time to throw a few elbows.

Yet the danger is clear: Democrats stepping fully into suppression means fighting on Republican turf. The GOP has spent decades perfecting these tactics, and it holds more state legislatures, which means it controls the majority of the mapmaking machinery. It’s like showing up late to a poker game where the other players have already marked the deck and taught the dealer how to cheat.

Even if Democrats match Republicans move for move, the cost is corrosive. The public begins to assume everyone is crooked. Cynicism becomes the currency of politics, and once voters cash in, turnout collapses across the board. And history shows us one stubborn truth: low turnout usually helps the right, not the left. By normalizing suppression, Democrats risk erasing their own long-term advantage while eroding the very faith in elections they claim to defend.

But here’s the paradox: if Democrats engage in suppression too, the courts may finally be forced to act. As long as the dirty tricks are one-sided, the justices can look away, pretending it’s just politics as usual. But when both parties weaponize the same tools, legitimacy collapses. At that moment, the Supreme Court either steps in or watches the republic disintegrate in plain sight.

Yes, the current Court leans conservative, but even conservatives need the appearance of fair elections. Legitimacy is the oxygen of governance. Without it, even those in power choke. History reminds us that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 wasn’t born out of polite debate; it was forced into existence by chaos in the streets, when legitimacy itself was on the line. We may be heading toward another such reckoning.

Underlying all of this is the psychology of suppression. Fear is the engine that drives it. Research shows authoritarian-leaning voters are exceptionally responsive to fear-based messages. Tell them immigrants are invading, their culture is under siege, their jobs are vanishing, and they’ll hand over their votes along with their civil liberties.

It’s political crybaby-ism dressed up as patriotism: a perpetual panic that someone, somewhere, might take a slice of their pie. Suppression feels like oxygen to the GOP machine because it reassures its fearful base that the “others” are being kept in check. But fear is a brittle glue. It holds for a while, then cracks under exposure to sunlight. The antidote is not to mimic fear, but to expose its absurdity and remind people that democracy only thrives when everyone has a seat at the table.

The path forward isn’t to embrace suppression as a permanent strategy but to use it tactically, briefly, to force that reckoning. Once the Supreme Court rules definitively against these practices, the nation can finally establish real guardrails: independent redistricting commissions, proportional representation, automatic voter registration, and laws that actually have meaning.

Renewal doesn’t come from wallowing in the gutter; it comes from showing how filthy the gutter really is. Like a doctor giving a small dose of poison to expose a disease, the point isn’t to live on poison but to flush it from the body once and for all. And the cure must come soon, before 2026 and 2028, when caging operations, gerrymandered maps, and ballot restrictions could define the entire playing field unless stopped cold.

American democracy is a house infested with termites. You can patch the walls and paint the shutters, but until you fumigate, the rot continues. Gerrymandering and voter suppression are those termites. Republicans have thrived on them, Democrats have tiptoed around them, and the Supreme Court has pretended not to see. But if both parties embrace the game, the pretense ends. The Court will have to act. And maybe, the house can still stand. If not, the termites won’t just eat the beams; they’ll bring down the foundation itself. And history will not forgive the generation that let the roof cave in.

Music Interlude

About the Author

Robert Jennings is the co-publisher of InnerSelf.com, a platform dedicated to empowering individuals and fostering a more connected, equitable world. A veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army, Robert draws on his diverse life experiences, from working in real estate and construction to building InnerSelf with his wife, Marie T. Russell, to bring a practical, grounded perspective to life’s challenges. Founded in 1996, InnerSelf.com shares insights to help people make informed, meaningful choices for themselves and the planet. More than 30 years later, InnerSelf continues to inspire clarity and empowerment.

 Creative Commons 4.0

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License. Attribute the author Robert Jennings, InnerSelf.com. Link back to the article This article originally appeared on InnerSelf.com

Article Recap

Gerrymandering and voter suppression have long tilted power away from democracy. If Democrats join the suppression war, it may backfire politically but could finally push the Supreme Court to outlaw these tactics. Exposing fear-driven manipulation and forcing accountability is the only path toward renewal.

#gerrymandering #votersuppression #democracy #supremecourt #americanpolitics