Since the Supreme Court's ruling on the Voting Rights Act, I posted two diaries about the inadequate response by Pres. Obama and other Democrats. The issue isn't merely that one ruling. There are a variety of attacks on electoral fairness that have impacted the US in recent years. Citizens United, voter intimidation, 6-hour long lines to vote, laws making it harder to register, selective voter roll purges, gerrymandering, etc. Each is bad; together there is no justification for the relative lack of attention focused on it.
It has been pointed out in comments to my last diary that Congressional Democrats are talking about working on changes to the Voting Rights Act that avoid the objections of the Supreme Court. Time will tell what they will or will not do. Perhaps, talking about making new legislation is more than we've seen in response to some of the other abuses mentioned above. Therefore, maybe we'll see more action. But it's still early to treat this as proof of what will actually result.
If the responses to my diaries are any indication, the strategy of the Democratic Party to deal with most of the abuses is to raise funds for election campaigns and try to get elected in all the places that have enacted the undemocratic election laws. Especially done by itself, there is a serious flaw in this strategy. The deck has already been stacked against majority rule. In the 2012 elections, gerrymandering gave a majority of House seats to the GOP. Even after all their efforts to selectively exclude groups of voters, they needed gerrymandering to control the House. For instance, if you added up all the votes for Congressional candidates in North Carolina's 13 districts, you'd find that of the citizens who were not prevented from voting by election abuses, 51% voted for Democrats. But the gerrymandering was so effective that Democrats were only allowed 4 of the 13 House seats - a majority of the votes resulted in less than 1/3 of the seats.
With new schemes to reduce election fairness, such as the Voting Rights ruling, continually being added to the list of abuses, just running candidates isn't enough. When you need 70% of the citizens to want to vote for Democrats to have 60% who are allowed to cast a ballot, and you need 60% of those who are allowed to cast ballots to get 50% of the legislative seats, and the rich are allowed unlimited spending to influence the public - at best you have a very long wait ahead of you. Between now and then, what will be happening? If past experience is any indication: New schemes to warp the voting process will be introduced and more big money will go to conservatives. "Reasonable" Democrats will try to compete in fund-raising by going after more corporate money with strings attached, they'll tell us the election of conservatives shows they must move to the right, they will accept more conservative ultimatums as the only was to prevent crises... These actions will make Democrats less inspiring to voters, which could make it harder to get the necessary voters to the polls. It has the potential to be a vicious cycle.
But we don't have to just sit and wait. Politicians could use every opportunity to express outrage at these travesties and call on the American people to make an issue of it 365 days a year - every year, not just election years.
There are various worthy social issues out there. But for anyone who believes in bringing about change through the electoral system, there can be no issue more important than the plundering of the electoral system to prevent true majority rule. As something of paramount importance, it's not something to deal with only during campaign season and to quietly accept the rest of the time. It's one thing to say the Democratic Party's main places of activity are in elected offices and in candidacies to get there. It's another thing to say they should not spend a lot of time and effort outside those two roles when the electoral system surrounding those two roles is in jeopardy.
I could go on and on about this, but I already have in earlier diaries.
Voting Rights Ruling: Another Step Reducing Democracy
Gerrymandering: 51% of Vote = 31% of Congressional seats
The West Wing and No-Fight Democrats
Fund-raising Focus Ensures Congress Is Bought, Progressives Lose
In addition to other voting issues, there is the lack of the right to vote by former prisoners
Up to 10% of Voting Age Citizens Denied Vote
Even on popular issues, you can't count on Democrats to even promise to vote the way citizens want
10% of Congressional Dems Promise to Back 3-to-1 Public Majority
Believable: 28 Senate Democrats voted with the Republicans
Democrats don't tend to present progressive ideas in the most effective ways
Why Don't Democrats Use Progressive Framing & Messaging?