Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering is the act of politicians manipulating the redrawing of legislative district lines in order to help their friends and hurt their enemies. They may seek to help one party win extra seats (a partisan gerrymander), make incumbents of both parties safer (an incumbent-protection gerrymander) or target particular incumbents who have fallen out of favor.

Those engaged in gerrymandering rely heavily on winner-take-all voting rules. That is, when 51% of voters earn 100% of representation, those drawing districts can pack, stack and crack the population in order to make some votes count to their full potential and waste other votes. Gerrymandering has become easier today due to a combination of new technology to precisely draw districts and greater voter partisan rigidity that makes it easier to project the outcome of new districts.

Independent redistricting commissions and other public interest changes to redistricting are important, but trying to fix gerrymandering fully within winner-take-all voting rules is simply impossible. Reasonable goals will always be in conflict, such as:

the more districts are designed to be compact and maintain county voting lines, the more likely they are to be safe for one party;

the more districts are designed to be competitive, the more likely that representation will be distorted;

the more competitive a state makes its House districts, the more other states gain power in Congress by protecting their incumbents.

Addressing Gerrymandering

The key to fixing gerrymandering is changing key statutory laws for how elections are held. Check out our resources:

Ranked Choice Voting Fair Representation Act for Congress Redistricting

Image Source: Maryland Department of Planning