The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines gerrymandering as follows:
The term "gerrymandering" was coined by a review of Massachusetts's redistricting maps of 1812 set by Governor Elbridge Gerry that was named because one of the districts looked like a salamander.
Gerrymandering in the US
Once a decade, in the United States, every state redraws its electoral districts, determining which people will be represented by each politician. The Indian equivalent for these electoral districts would be constituencies. The difference being that these constituencies are redrawn on the map every 10 years in the US.
The concept of gerrymandering was brought in to make representation of a party better and for it to provide more decisive results to an election. It can be used to recreate districts with the aim of maximizing the number of racial minorities to assist particular nominees, who are minorities themselves, to better their representation.
Manipulation of Representation
But this concept has manifested itself in other forms of manipulation of representation. Typical gerrymandering cases in the United States take the form of partisan gerrymandering, which is aimed at favoring one political party or weakening another; bipartisan gerrymandering, which is aimed at protecting incumbents by multiple political parties; and racial gerrymandering, which is aimed at weakening the power of minority voters.
In many states, this means that politicians gather behind computer screens to figure out how they can manipulate the lines to box out their competition and maximize the power of their political party. While an increasing number of states employ independent commissions to draw district lines, the large majority still lack safeguards to prevent partisan favoritism in the redistricting process— which is partisan gerrymandering.
Methods of Gerrymandering
The goal is to draw boundaries of legislative districts so that as many seats as possible are likely to be won by the party’s candidates. Drafters accomplish it mainly through two practices commonly called packing and cracking.
● A packed district is drawn to include as many of the opposing party’s voters as possible. That helps the governing party win surrounding districts where the opposition’s strength has been diluted to create the packed district.
● Cracking does the opposite: It splits up clusters of opposition voters among several districts, so that they will be outnumbered in each district.
An efficiently gerrymandered map has a maximum number of districts that each contain just enough governing-party supporters to let the party’s candidates win and hold the seat safely. It packs the opposition’s supporters into a minimum number of districts, which the opposition will win fair and square.
Effects of Gerrymandering
It has been almost a decade since the 2010 cycle of redistricting, and the country is still reckoning with the impact. Last May, the Center for American Progress published a report that found that unfairly drawn congressional districts shifted, on average, a whopping 59 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives during the 2012, 2014, and 2016 elections. That means that every other November, 59 politicians that would not have been elected based on statewide voter support for their party won anyway because the lines were drawn in their favor—often by their allies in the Republican or Democratic Party.
To help put this number in perspective, a shift of 59 seats is slightly more than the total number of seats apportioned to the 22 smallest states by population. It is also more than the number of representatives for America’s largest state, California, which has 53 House members representing a population of nearly 40 million people, as reported by Center for American Progress.
The very apparent conclusion is that gerrymandering is effectively disenfranchising millions of Americans. This is a critical situation as even if voters of one state were excluded, the scale of balance would be tipped so far back that a net impact equivalent to the exclusion of 12 states would be seen in the election results. This simple fact adequately plots the urgent need to address gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering – 2020 US Election
As we approach the 2020 presidential election, there is growing concern over the US states’ ability to administer the election during the COVID-19 pandemic amongst other outcries against how President Trump is dealing with the pandemic situation on the whole.
Another issue stems from the fact that US states are required to certify their Presidential Elector votes by early December. If the results of a state’s presidential election are disputed or undetermined by this deadline, Article II of the Constitution allows the Electors to be chosen “in such a manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” This means that state legislators could play a pivotal role in determining who wins the presidency.
Due to the recent redefining of electoral maps a.k.a gerrymandering, we find that dozens of states using these state legislative districts maps give the Republican Party an unfair electoral advantage. Many of the states with the most gerrymandered state governments are up for grabs in 2020 and could ultimately determine who wins.
Conclusion
President Trump being re-elected in 2020, as impossible as it may seem with the public outrage against his response to the pandemic and the last 4 years in general, is still something that could be reality due to this policy of gerrymandering amongst other factors.
The solution to fair representation is also seemingly simple; require each state to draw districts that accurately reflect the political views of the American people. States should draw districts that are reasonably competitive, so that when voters change their minds, they can also change their representatives. The redistricting process should also prioritize ensuring fair representation for communities of color, who continue to be drastically underrepresented in Congress and even more underrepresented in state legislatures.
This however comes at the cost of a possible uprising with having to change the fundamental principles that the US Constitution is based upon. While the November 3rd election is much awaited upon with noticeable public rallying against Trump, it is still unpredictable as to how this would translate into votes and seats being won.
This very fact establishes questioning gerrymandering and the redrawing of electoral maps, as a valid argument to be brought up amongst others. The need to re-establish the true nature of a democracy in the US still stands. Allowing the people’s votes to truly reflect in the choice of the nation’s representative- one that truly represents the nation’s thoughts, opinions and decisions- is something every US citizen still hopes for, as they watch along with the world, the US elections 2020.
Article By-
Anupama Nhavalore
Co-Editor,
For The Record,
PES MUN Society
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