Gerrymandering: Plurality Voting System and Redistricting Game

Article I of the Constitution lays out the basic format of the legislative branch. The document states that the power to create laws or change existing laws lies with Congress, a government body made out of two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each state, regardless of size or population, has two senators who are elected directly by the public according to the 17th Amendment. The House of Representatives, on the other hand, is dependent on population, and a state 's number of representatives is determined by the U.S. census every ten years. For example, Alabama 's state

The first proposal, of changing the electoral system for the House of Representatives, would mean that each state is represented in proportion to its population. This entails that states with higher populations will receive more votes because they have more seats in the House. Less populous states may argue against this reform because they will have a disadvantage when it comes to voting on legislation. However, the reform also includes having each state serve as electoral districts. In this case, multi-member districts will be needed—proportional representation will require a larger district magnitude. Having these territorial subdivisions will help create an efficient legislative system because there would be less possibility of manipulating the votes—not as relevant to election results when seats are proportional. Having the votes distributed in this manner may help avoid a deadlock and therefore, allow for a faster process when passing legislation. In addition, minorities will have chance to be represented by possibly gaining a seat in a particular district—a highly populous

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.

The House of Representatives consists of 435 elected members that are divided among the fifty states in proportion to their population. There are also six

There are two types of gerrymandering, the first is called packing. Packing is when you put the same type of people in one electoral district. Why is packing helpful?, well packing can decrease the chance of one party influencing the other party. Cracking is the other way of gerrymandering, this is when you spread one party out to decrease their impact on the district, causing the other party to win the district. Gerrymandering in general sounds a little wrong in a political view. It sounds very wrong after hearing about the great gerrymander in 2012. In the house of representatives we have 435 seats. To be able to determine how many seats go to a state every ten years the department of commerce holds something called a census. The

During the course of the past few decades, the United States of America faced hundreds of issues that impact the nation’s view of leadership. Some people of the United States believe that the issues that face America involves those in office, while others believe that the issue is structural. In the case of America today, there is a momentous structural difficulty in our voting system. Furthermore, the most distinct problem that the United States handles today is gerrymandering. Throughout this essay, it will be made clear that gerrymandering is the leading problem facing America today because it harms the equality of citizens.

Riker argues that these bold uses of gerrymandering are made possible, and even encouraged, by two landmark Supreme Court Cases. Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims were two similar cases from the 1960’s that addressed the unequal representation caused by the unwillingness of politicians to adjust the electoral districts to accurately reflect the major population changes of the twentieth century.15 Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims forced Congress and state legislative bodies to correct this inaccurate political representation by mandating equally sized voting districts.16 In fact, Reynolds v. Sims went so far as to require a voting population difference of no more than ten percent between the largest and smallest electoral districts.17 Furthermore,

Politics in the United States is a complex structure that is comprised of many systems. While most of these systems appear to work well, there are a few that are broken. A perfect example of a broken system is the district boundaries and the likelihood of gerrymandering. Multiple states across the country are subjected to gerrymandering, which is the act of dividing a county into election districts that provide one political party with an unfair advantage over the other. Gerrymandering is used to help or prevent a particular demographic from gaining adequate representation. In Florida, for example, there is controversy over Congressional District 5, which extends from Jacksonville down to Orlando in a way that creates a “minority-majority” district.

Yet, there are still cases that pop up every now and then. The Supreme Court has set up rules like compact and contiguous districts, physically adjoining districts, and the one-person, one-vote rule. That last one is most important because it affects everyone. Every person’s vote must equal the same. Even if district are redrawn to give more power to minorities, it is still giving an unfair because it lend strength towards the democratic party, to which minorities are more likely to vote. Gerrymandering is a threat to the weight that the average person’s vote carries and that is a threat to the fairness and unbiasedness of elections.

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

The redistribution of districts definitely helped voters that felt underrepresented especially those in rurals and cities but this still presents problems with small pockets of voters that are either undecided or strongly in favor of one party over their districts affiliation. The new NY District 23 is a perfect example of this. District 23 is lead by Congressman Tom Reed, a Republican representing a very rural area of Southern Tier New York. The cities of Corning, Ithaca, Olean, Jamestown, and Dunkirk are scattered throughout the district with dozens of public and private universities also present. The district population is mostly isolated in the cities with sparse populations elsewhere. A majority of the population would be young, due to the universities, and mostly urban, because of the cities, so you expect the district to be blue, wrong. District 23 is in fact red, because of the lack of mobilization of young voters to go out and vote. Because of this, older more rural voters decide the party affiliation of the district resulting in representation by Reed. Some argue that Tom Reed’s district is gerrymandered in his favor which resulted in his reelection this past November. Although he was reelected, there was still a presence of more younger voters making an effort to go out and vote. John Plumb, Reed’s Democratic opponent, had great outreach in the Chautauqua

In 1787, one of the most debated issues was the size of the House of Representatives. During the Constitutional Convention, the delegates proposed that 40,000 citizens should be represented by one congressional district. However, George Washington intervened and argued that 40,000 was too high, and reasoned that 30,000 was more reasonable and allow people to be represented adequately Washington’s proposal was incorporated in Article One, Section Two of the Constitution which states “representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State.” While the number of representatives did increase throughout the history of the United States, the number has been set at 435 members since 1929. Congress in 1929 passed the Permanent Apportionment Act that set the number of representatives at 435, which was set after a 1910 census. Currently each representative represents 700,000 citizens and congressional seats are redistricted around the nation based on population changes. But the currently number of representatives does not adequately represent the present population and a single district cannot represent a huge number of people. Therefore, the current number of representatives must be increased.

In order for legislators to draw districts there has to be: at least 650,000 people in a district, and district borders must be continuous. Districts can be drawn to favor a certain group of minorities, but it can not suppress minorities. Parties draw district lines for the benefit at the expense of proportionality and fair representation. District lines are also used to minimize the influence of minority voters by disportionality combining them with single districts. In Missouri, Republicans and Democrats are disportionately put in districts together, then when it comes time for voting a certain party has more of an advantage than the other. Gerrymandering is also used to assists with re-election for representatives. When it comes time for voting for representatives, a citizen that is new to a district and does not know the recent representative of their district, their vote for another candidate can be overridden by other candidates that voted for the same representative. In this case, name recognition helps representative have a better chance at getting

In American politics today, many practices exist that greatly harm the American public. One of these dangerous practices, known as gerrymandering, occurs in nearly every state. While some claim that the practice helps America, in reality gerrymandering harms American democracy and safety. Gerrymandering greatly affects society, and must become illegal to insure fair representation, the democratic processes in America continues, and America continues to thrive.

The number of representatives for each state is based off of population. For every thirty thousand people living in each state, there shall be one representative, and to keep up with population growth, a census is taken every three years, as stated in Document D. Every state gets two senators, which are chosen by the legislatures, and each senator gets one vote, which is described in Document D. Having this system allows for a fair way to give each state a set amount of representatives without having one state more powerful than