I think the largest obstacle to free elections today is the practice of Gerrymandering. Incumbent Gerrymandering more so than Party. Party is still bad though. A lot of responsibility for the state of the Union is laid at the office of the President. But in truth it is Congress who decides most issues. Here is an hour long video on Gerrymandering courtesy of
endgerrymandering.com*snip for brevity*
I've encountered what I think is gerrymandering in the last decade.
I originally lived in
PA 19th District, but in the 2010 census, PA lost a congressional seat, and they renamed it.
PA 19th District 2005-2013:
In 2013, the district was renamed and redrawn into the
PA 4th District:
During that redrawing, the area I live in was taken from the now PA 4th District and connected to
PA 11th District by extending that district across the state.
Included was the largest nearby town/suburban area, Carlisle.
PA District 11 from 2005-2013:
PA District 11 as redrawn in 2012 and implemented in 2013:
I do not know the reasons for this. But clearly they wanted the Town/suburban area of Carlisle to be part of PA District 11, rather than PA District 4.
Speculation:
They wanted the republican voters in the Carlisle area to pull District 11 more to the right, because PA District 4 has been voting Republican consistently since 1967, and that way they would have 2 Republican House members instead of one.
I say this because PA District 11 voted Dem for 30 years prior to the 2010 election, and has been held by a Republican since that time.
Edit: Not entirely sure what area the Carlisle and suburbs area cover, they might have split it between 4th and 11th districts.
Edit 2: I'm mainly upset because that makes this guy my representative: