The Gerrymandering System In The United States

The resulting districts are normally referred to as gerrymanders and they are composed of pro-incumbents and partisans. Partisan gerrymandering involves the redrawing of political lines in order to favor a given political party. Incumbent gerrymandering involves the redrawing of boundaries in a bipartisan manner that is aimed at benefiting the incumbents on both sides of the aisle (Snider 2012).

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.

More convincing than the fact that the majority of incumbents retained their seats by overwhelming margins is the shocking statistic that a quarter of the incumbents were uncontested.13 These politicians were so successful at arranging favorable districts that it was futile to even attempt a challenge. The author continued to examine particularly egregious cases of gerrymandering in New York, including that of Senator Guy Vellela, who once selected voters for his district by individual city blocks.14 Senator Guy Vellela, as well as the other state senators of New York, are prime examples of politicians exploiting gerrymandering to manipulate the outcome of elections and improve their outcomes.

Before delving into the reasons for eliminating gerrymandering, it is first necessary to establish a definition of gerrymandering. According to Mike Stankiewicz, “Gerrymandering is a redistricting tactic that is used to increase the influence and power of a particular political party. It has been practiced since the country’s founding and has long been a controversial endeavor. Courts have battled with the legality of gerrymandering based on race, ethnicity, and other factors for decades.” (Stankiewicz). In essence, gerrymandering is a redistricting tactic used to increase a political party’s chances at winning an election (Stankiewicz).

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

In Ohio, "nonpartisan" elections vote justices into office. However, Preceeding these elections are partisan primaries, and each justice must campaign. If the justice wins the election, the justice will want to be re-elected as well. If they want their party to vote for them, they have no choice but to side with the party on issues, instead of interpreting the constitution as it is written. For these reasons, the Missouri Plan should be implemented in Ohio to prevent justices from acting as activists, and to keep justices from excessive partisan influence.

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

Throughout the years, the United States has been choosing its president using the electoral college, voter ID laws to reduce voter turnout, gerrymandering to choose our representatives, and using methods to select candidates in the primaries. Through the electoral college, their presidents have been unfairly chosen using the winner take all system. In this system, if they, the voters, choose the losing party, they might as well go home because of how it works. To make matters even worse, voter ID laws have been making their laws even more difficult to surpass, in able to reduce the number of votes. Gerrymandering is used to give a party a special advantage by using the packing and cracking method, and as for the primaries, they are held by

In the “Redrawing the Electoral Map: Reforming The Electoral College With the District-Popular Plan,” Craig J. Herbst discusses the reformation of the Electoral College, using a different method for elections, and the U.S. Constitution. The author argues that District-Popular Plan method is better for the nation because if it is used candidates will have put more effort into developing strategies for the popular vote, and people would be more knowledgeable about politics with those developments. Herbst notes that District-Popular Plan can help groups of people who are disadvantaged and underrepresented. He also states that the only and the best way to do this to have a constitutional amendment which is so hard to pass. Ultimately, he concludes the article with explaining the benefits of having the District-Popular Plan. Craig J. Herbst’s article was published in Hofstra Law Review which is and academic and credible source because it is peer-reviewed by experts on the issue. The purpose of this source is to inform people about the Electoral College and the U.S Constitution, and an alternative way for the Electoral College. I will use this source to get more information

The article, “In Praise of Gerrymandering” written by Kevin D. Williamson, talks about gerrymandering, which is when politicians are cheating to be elected and shares his opinion that Republicans have become “too good” at this. He then illustrates that Democrats need to demonstrate better ways of obtaining votes.

A Congressional Proportional method is another alternative being proposed in opposition to the Electoral College. A Congressional proportional method would allocate votes based on the winner of each congressional district. It would also award the winner of the overall popular vote in each state two electoral votes(senators). Once again on the surface this system looks fair and reasonable, but if you investigate deeply it can be seen that there is one glaring flaw in this system. The act of Gerrymandering which is used throughout the United States in every state is when the authority in each state decided which way the districts will be drawn. In simpler terms an authority could draw district that would exclude certain type of voters to increase

Political gerrymandering has been present in politics for quite some time now. It is unavoidable due to human nature to avoid opposition, but is it a fair action? For those in the incumbent political party may say, yes, they've earned their position and they have the right to fill other positions with like minded politicians. Now this is great news for the incumbents, they have a very easy path to enter the political game and pass laws in their favor. However, voters and opposing parties would likely call this an unfair advantage and an infringement on their political power.

There is currently a case in the supreme court regarding gerrymandering. This case came from Wisconsin. Not only that, but gerrymandering is destroying the fair voting system. It gives one political party the advantage over the other and that is not right.

If I were to choose an improvement to make an American political institution better, I would choose to improve the process of redistricting. I would change redistricting in a way that would make it fairer such as getting someone who is not in either major party to draw the lines for new districts after every census instead of someone from the current party in power. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, (NCSL), redistricting is “the process of redrawing state legislative and congressional district boundaries every 10 years following the decennial United Census.”(Redistricting) Basically redistricting is the election of state legislators, Congress members, and many country and municipal offices who are grouped into districts

Redrawing the districts to give a political advantage is not sophisticated. It ruins the point of the Fifteenth Amendment which allows the right to vote no matter the race, sex, or personality. The right to vote doesn’t matter because of the unfairness and the corruption of the districts. These voters will be confused about these uncanny district shapes. Because of these lines, the citizens will not know which office to vote for. For Example, the first ever