Politics
Gerrymandering
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Politics
Gerrymandering
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Gerrymandering is a practice intended to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries. Supreme Court cases require state legislatures to redraw districts every ten years (coinciding with the national Census) to ensure that legislative districts are roughly equal in population. In redrawing districts, officeholders can dilute the opposition partyÕs votes by ÒcrackingÓ its voters across several districts, making it more difficult to construct a majority in any district, and can waste the opposition partyÕs vote by ÒpackingÓ its voters into unnecessarily safe districts, reducing its capacity to compete in the remaining districts.
One of many extreme examples - Marylands 3rd district.
Gerrymandering is commonly blamed for polarization, but there are several studies which discredit that theory.
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