Dear Union volunteer,

In the 2022 midterm elections, gerrymandering distorted the popular vote and will of the people. In districts redrawn by the GOP, Republicans won 3 seats for every seat won by Democrats. This isn’t surprising—the whole point of gerrymandering is to give one party an advantage it wouldn’t have if the districts were drawn in line with logical geographical or population boundaries.

More critical: Republican legislatures drew far more districts than Democrats, independent commissions, or the courts, and in more than 80% of districts redrawn by the GOP, the Republican candidate won by 15 points or more. That means that in those districts, the GOP primary—not voters in the General Election—determines who will win a seat in Congress. And MAGA extremists—those who are now the “base” of the Republican Party—control those primaries.

Marc Elias, the lawyer who helped win 60 court challenges by Donald Trump over the 2020 election, says it is becoming increasingly difficult for voter registration and voter turnout to combat voter suppression like gerrymandering. “The way to defeat voter suppression is by defeating it head on,” he says, not by working around it.

At The Union, we will continue to support essential efforts to register voters, educate voters, and help get those voters to the polls. We must also challenge the ways voter suppression is systematically dismantling democracy.