The Truth About Gerrymandering Explained | What is Gerrymandering?

In this video, we’ll cover the truth about gerrymandering and how it affects you as a person in a representative democracy.

Gerrymandering is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent of creating an advantage for a party, group, or socio-economic class within the constituency, or body of voters. The term gerrymandering is named after American politician Elbridge Gerry who, as Governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander. The term has negative connotations and gerrymandering is almost always considered a corruption of the democratic process.

Many people describe gerrymandering as politicians picking their voters instead of voters picking their politicians. Gerrymandering can also be used to protect incumbents or politicians currently in office. Every 10 years, when the census comes around, legislators in all 50 states redraw their district maps based on the new population counts. In many cases, what they’re really doing is drawing districts like these to make sure they have the highest chance to win their next election. They combine census data with voter data to pick and choose which voters are in their districts and make sure they win their next election.

They use techniques like “packing” which means lumping all your opponents voters into one or two districts so your party can win the rest or “cracking” which means dividing an opponent’s strong district into multiple weaker ones you can beat them in.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_People_Act

#gerrymandering #politics #voting

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