Examples Of Gerrymandering In The United States

Forgette Richard, Garner Andrew, and Winkle John. “Do redistricting principles and practices affect US state legislative electoral competition? State Politics and policy quarterly, 20(9) (2009): 151 175.

In the following essay I will be talking about the disadvantages and advantages of partisan elections for state politics. I will also examine the last couple year's election results and costs. Finally, I will discuss if partisanship made a difference in the vote, as well as if a judge should be decided by partisan vote. In the next couple paragraphs I will talk more specifically about these topics.

Gerrymandering is a form of boundary redistricting, in which the boundaries of an electoral district or constituency are modified for electoral purposes, often producing a contorted or unusual shape. The resulting district is known as a Gerrymander. Gerrymandering is used as a potential way to achieve desired electoral results for a particular party, or may be used to

According to the text “Keeping the Republic”, gerrymandering is redistricting to benefit a particular group. Many believe gerrymandering is no longer used anymore, however it is just as prominent today as it ever was. In fact, redistricting and gerrymandering affect American politics in numerous ways. When politicians choose to gerrymander it disrupts the whole

Gerrymandering causes extremism by pushing like minded voters into one district thereby eliminating compromising. This is a major reason for the gridlock in Washington.

The map in Appendix 6 shows the partisan competitiveness of each congressional district in the United States. Southern states, such as Georgia, South Carolina, and Mississippi, show areas of deep blue, indicating congressional districts that are safely Democratic, surrounded by areas of deep red, indicating areas are safely Republican, with very little in between. This shows that there is little to no competition within these states for congressional races and it would appear Republicans have successfully gerrymandered these states to send majority republican delegations to congress. There is, therefore, a lack of partisan competitiveness in these states, which may be a result of the strict voter ID laws. The strict voter ID laws passed in these states may have been intended to help further the Republican strangle hold in these states in conjunction with the Gerrymandered congressional districts, especially considering these states are not competitive in general elections as

The state should use citizen voting age population, so there will be less differential in the voters between different districts. For a long period of time, the Supreme Court doesn’t accept the redistricting claims of political question: is the Constitution guarantees that each day job a republican form of government for a long time. It was all left for the Congress and the states to fix the puzzle. However, Baker v. Carr (1962), the Court decided to hear the claims under the equal protection clause and noticed that one-person, one-vote can arise the equal protection clause of the constitution (Oyez, 1). This comes to a conclusion that the Supreme Court should develop some political philosophy, which enforce all states to follow it. However, it turns out that the supreme court has muddled through the definition of one person, one-vote and how state legislators should be working on at this

How many of you here actually know what Gerrymandering is? Well, the dictionary definition of Gerrymandering is "The diving of a state into election districts so as to give one political party a majority in many districts while concentrating the voting strength of the other party into as few districts as possible," Harper, 1) but thats a very vague definition. In my own words, Gerrymandering is almost like when you build a puzzle, and you take all the outer pieces first because they're easier, well, Gerrymandering is basically re-shaping the districts when people are often moving between one and the other, and finding one where the population is relatively low. Why low?

Gerrymander can be best described as a way to favor a particular party by ensuring a seat to obtain power or control of a state.

America is vastly known as a country boundlessly pursuing equality in all facets of life. In this seemingly endless quest for equal opportunity, there has been one lurking negation; our election system. The addition to equal representation in public funding and on the ballot will create variability and allow Americans to entrust their vote in a political format that more closely aligns with democratic philosophy. Therefore, a shift away from a bipartisan, a two party, dominated election system would not only be a healthy change for American electoral satisfaction, but for the future of third party politics. Unfortunately affluence and inherent wealth have played a large role in this divide between a true democratic election and our present biased, broken, and benyne system.

One solution to gerrymandering would be to have the two parties represented equally in the state. This means have the congressional districts would be divided between the two parties. This would end the issue of one party having complete control over a state just to get their party or laws that benefit certain people having an unequal advantage. Another solution would be to have the party represented by equal sized districts for each party. This would be possible by have the state's total area divided by how many districts and that would give you the area that each district for each party can

Having state-level republican or democrat legislators draw their own maps is a bad practise. This is because the main goal of redistricting is to help a community secure meaningful representations. In this process this could be unfair but only occurs every decade. The matter of it is that the sun belt will continue to gain more representatives and the other states will lose representatives. But win or lose, states have to re-draw their lines to make sure that the districts have equal populations and that there in one continuous shape. If there is an unfair advantage, and the elections are not competitive and are basically over before they start, then it will appear that the democracy is going to be made fun of. But adopting non-partisan redistricting

This article relates how House Bill 25, a bill designed to end straight-ticket voting in any Texas election, passed through the Texas Senate with precursory support by a two-thirds vote on May 17. An update states that the bill received conclusive support through a vote of 19-11. Opponents of the bill believe that it is an attempt to undermine the power of Democrats, as well as unfairly affect minority voters. In the previous year, Michigan attempted to enact legislation much like House Bill 25, but it’s endeavors were halted by a federal judge, on the grounds formerly mentioned. Advocates

Gerrymandering is the use of redrawing certain districts and manipulating the boundaries allowing a political advantage to one’s party and the other a disadvantage. This process occurs every ten years as new political candidates run to be a government official ( Fan 737 ). It started in 1812 where Governor Gerry redrew the district lines of Massachusetts, giving his party an advantage. That is how Gerrymandering got its name. Usually, the person who redraws the district goes after the urban areas because of how populated they are compared to rural areas. This is not good for the United States because of many reasons; Gerrymandering create districts that are confusing to voters because of the weird shapes and sizes, claims of the party can be contradictory, and the fact that gerrymandering is around, makes the people believe that the candidates are corrupted and running the right the vote. ( RULEY 785 ).

One of the most significant parts of a democratic government is how the population of the country selects the people that will represent them in the government. The voting system that a country uses has a substantial impact on how the government of that country is run, and how well the concerns of the electorate are addressed. There are many important factors to weigh when selecting a voting system, but an efficient voting system needs to consistently address a few key issues. These include producing a government that represents the electorate’s political views as closely as possible, preventing gerrymandering, and preventing two party rule. What voting system best accomplishes all of these conditions, and could be implemented for use in the United States? There are three voting systems that this essay will cover; these are first-past-the-post (FPTP), the instant-runoff, and mixed-member proportional representation (MMP).