Poughkeepsie Journal

Do you respect freedom, liberty, justice and democracy? Me too. These have been undermined by gerrymandered state and federal districts — sometimes “surgically” drawn, house-by-house — to ensure political majority. This explains discrepancies between popular votes and representatives in state governments and Congress.

This simple graphic from The Washington Post illustrates how this works: http://bit.ly/2jgur7u

For a thorough explanation of gerrymandering, listen to this NPR podcast: http://n.pr/263lxJb

This kind of "legal," but unethical, cheating undermines the basic democratic principle ”one man, one vote.” “Winner-take-all" Electoral College results based on engineered districts do not reflect the will of the majority that a democratic form of government guarantees. Electors should represent the popular votes. Congressional districts should be drawn by non- or bi- partisan committees.

When the minority party ends up with a majority, voice it is unfair, unpatriotic, un-American and just plain wrong!

Deborah Weltsch

Tillson