Gerrymandering

Abstract

Gerrymandering refers to the deliberate manipulation of territory to gain disproportionate power in elections. The purpose of gerrymandering is to help ‘your side’ and to hurt the ‘other side’, whether this refers to a political party, a racial or ethnic group, kinds of territory (urban, rural, suburban, rich, poor), or individuals (incumbents or challengers), and thereby to obtain a higher share of seats than of votes. There are various means of gerrymandering electoral districts. Splitting or dilution of the concentrations of the other side leaves them a minority in as many districts as possible; cracking is a form in which the district of an incumbent of the other party is split. Packing concentrates the other side in as few districts as possible, so that many of their votes are ‘wasted’, while also creating many districts with moderate margins for your side. US courts have both condemned and endorsed gerrymandering, but only with respect to discrimination against a racial or linguistic minority. Gerrymandering was considered ‘just politics’ until critical decisions on the basis of the Voting Rights Act outlawed racial dilution. The Department of Justice, many legislatures, and courts began the 1990 round of redistricting with the expectation of striving for proportionality, even if heroic gerrymandering was required. This led to creation of well-publicized irregularities in many redistricting plans. This leaves unresolved two aspects of gerrymandering and electoral fairness – those of party and of territory – but there is no judicial consensus to invalidate manipulation against a political party or recognized place or community. Fair representation means that citizens' votes are meaningful, that over time and over a small set of districts, the shares of seats won is proportional to the share of votes received – that some peoples' votes are not weightier than others. Gerrymandering is reduced in those states with bipartisan and especially with independent districting commissions. Use of multimember districts with some form of proportional representation would be effective, but is unlikely to be widely adopted in the United States. The more likely reform is that the US Supreme Court will eventually rule that partisan gerrymandering violates the guarantee of representational fairness.