Gerrymandering
Gerrymandering
• in the process of setting electoral districts,
gerrymandering is a practice that attempts to
establish a political advantage for a particular party or
group by manipulating district boundaries to create
partisan advantaged districts.
• The resulting district is known as a gerrymander
Gerrymandering
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mky11UJb9AY
•In addition to its use achieving desired
electoral results for a particular party,
gerrymandering may be used to help or hinder
a particular demographic, such as a political,
ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, or class
group, such as in U.S. federal voting district
boundaries that produce a majority of
constituents representative of AfricanAmerican or other racial minorities, known as
"majority-minority districts".
•Brighter blue is
more
Democratic,
while brighter
red is more
Republican.
• The two goals of gerrymandering are to maximize the effect of
supporters' votes, and to minimize the effect of opponents'
votes.
• One strategy, packing, is to concentrate as many voters of one
type into a single electoral district to reduce their influence in
other districts. In some cases, this may be done to obtain
representation for a community of common interest (such as
to create a majority-minority district), rather than to dilute
that interest over several districts to a point of ineffectiveness
(and, when minority groups are involved, to avoid possible
racial discrimination).
•A second strategy, cracking, involves spreading
out voters of a particular type among many
districts in order to deny them a sufficiently
large voting bloc in any particular district. An
example would be to split the voters in an
urban area among several districts where the
majority of voters are suburban, on the
assumption that the two groups would vote
differently, and the majority of suburban voters
would elect their candidates of choice.
Basics of Gerrymandering:
packing & cracking
•Gerrymandering is effective because of the
wasted vote effect. By packing opposition
voters into districts they will already win
(increasing excess votes for winners) and
by cracking the remainder among districts
where they are moved into the minority
(increasing votes for eventual losers), the
number of wasted votes among the
opposition can be maximized
Cracking
• An example of "cracking"
style of gerrymandering.
The urban (and mostly
liberal Democratic)
concentration of
Columbus, Ohio, located
at the center of the map
in Franklin County, is split
into thirds, each segment
attached to—and
outnumbered by—largely
conservative suburbs that
vote Republican.
Packing
• Designed to
proportionally
segment voters of
the Democratic
Party, California's
23rd congressional
district, is confined
to a narrow strip of
coast, an example of
the packing style of
districting.
• North Carolina's
12th congressional
district An example
of packing. The
district has
predominantly
African-American
residents who vote
for Democrats.
• The odd shapes of
California Senate
districts in
Southern California
(2008) have led to
claims of
gerrymandering.
• The earmuff
shape of
Illinois's 4th
congressional
district packs
two Hispanic
areas while
retaining
narrow
contiguity
along
Interstate 294
• Illinois' 17th
congressional
district in the
western portion of
the state is
gerrymandered:
the major urban
centers are
anchored and
Decatur is
included, although
nearly isolated
from the main
district.
• After the Democrat Jim
Matheson was elected in
2000, the Utah legislature
redrew the 2nd
congressional district to
favor future Republican
majorities. The
predominantly Democratic
city of Salt Lake was
connected to
predominantly Republican
eastern and southern Utah
through a thin sliver of land
running through Utah
County. But, Matheson
continued to be re-elected.
In 2011, the legislature
created new congressional
districts that combined
conservative rural areas
with more urban areas to
dilute Democratic votes.
• Bi-partisan
incumbent
gerrymanderin
g produced
California
District 38,
home to Grace
Napolitano, a
Democrat,
who ran
unopposed in
2004.
• Texas'
controversial
2003 partisan
gerrymander
produced Texas
District 22 for
former Rep. Tom
DeLay, a
Republican.