What is Gerrymandering?

Mariama Diallo

POL 166

HW 7

11/14/15

“Gerrymandering is at least partly to blame for the lopsided Republican representation in the House. According to an analysis I did last year, the Democrats are underrepresented by about 18 seats in the House, relative to their vote share in the 2012 election. The way Republicans pulled that off was to draw some really, really funky-looking Congressional districts. Contrary to one popular misconception about the practice, the point of gerrymandering isn't to draw yourself a collection of overwhelmingly safe seats. Rather, it's to give your opponents a small number of safe seats, while drawing yourself a larger number of seats that are not quite as safe, but that you can expect to win comfortably.”

In this passage, the author highlights the disadvantages and the misconception of gerrymandering. The weight of gerrymandering always tilts on one side it never balances. Gerrymandering works in favor of only one particular party because this particular party redraw the district boundaries to give themselves an electoral advantage. It has been used at state level by both parties in order to keep control of houses. In recent years Republicans have used Gerrymandering to keep many houses under control even after losing the popular vote in many states. Gerrymandering began in 1812 in Boston; it was created by Governor Elbridge Gerry in reaction to the redrawing of Massachusetts state election districts. Gerrymandering is mainly used for the purpose of political advantages. These advantages are only there to help one particular party or group by manipulating the boundaries of different districts to create strong supporters of a political party. There are several tactics to gerrymandering; the different gerrymandering tactics are as follow: Cracking, which involves the spreading of a particular kind of voters in many districts; Packing, means to focus on many voters of one party into a single electoral district; andKidnapping, involves the moving of areas where there are many supporters of a certain elected official.

I chose this passage because it is very important for every citizen of a nation to know how its voting system works. Before reading this assignment I didn't know about gerrymandering.

.