The Political Influence Of Gerrymandering In The United States

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.

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.

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,

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.

“The Republicans are going to have their hand on the computer mouse, and when you have your hand on the computer mouse, you can change a district from a D to an R.” - The New York Times Dec 24,2010. Redistricting plays a role in electing representatives and state legislators. There is this thing called gerrymandering that allows the drawing of the new districts to be in their favor.

Voters Identification law may suppress minority voting and it may not suppress minority voting. We have so many different races that enter this country with permission and without. The laws for visiting or becoming a legal resident in this country is complicated especially because of the terrorist attacks. Identification laws are necessary in my opinion. It helps identify people, most importantly it helps to decrease any fraudulent activities in this country. I can say if it has anything to do with racial and ethnic minorities, maybe it’s a coincidence that majority of African Americans and Hispanic have less access to photo IDs, some of us are not legal citizens, or maybe not. The law complicates everything in general for good reasons so they feel. I can understand what the research and studies demonstrates, about the decrease in minority audience and increase Republican Party turnouts. I do believe if you have a higher mindset you can attain all things that seem impossible. I know firsthand how difficult it is for African Americans to register to vote without an ID, the law won’t even to let you register if its expired. So what the law has gotten strict, so what, that should motivate African Americans and other races in this country to push through any obstructions to get an ID so they can be apart in making changes in this society. I know African Americans went through what may have seem like Hell but they overcame it and contribute to adding Amendments, why go through

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

This whole district was the biggest pain of them all because one mouse click could easily throw off balance of the other districts. I had moved his district a little bit to the left and then added a tumor shaped section to his district and called it a day. That last part in which I drew the tumor shaped section had made his percentages 50% Republican, 48% Democrat, and a whole 2% Undecided. The funniest thing is it was pure luck, it had fell into place. Lastly, we have ole Mark Etz and his oddly shaped district, which I had just left after the aftermath of the formation of the other districts. It’s kind of shaped like the number three, I’m not going to question it because it had finished with 50% Republican, 48% Democrat, and 2% Undecided. This was clearly an attempt to “Partisan Gerrymander” in favor of the Republican party, which displays unfairness to the Democrats. I believe everyone in politics should be able to have a chance at winning, but that’s just too much to ask now-a-days.

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

"Redrawing the Electoral Map: Reforming the Electoral College with the District-Popular Plan." Hofstra Law Review, vol. 41, no. 1, Fall2012, pp. 217-265. EBSCOhost, dcccd.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.dcccd.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ofm&AN=86414706&site=ehost-live.

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.

Many Americans choose not to vote for this reason they feel their vote does not count. In some cases votes do not count because the districts have been manipulated in order for a certain party to have a greater chance of winning. Partisan gerrymandering is not the only way politicians can draw lines in their

This essay determine how 100 congressional seats should be divided among the 10 states of the union. The number of seats in a state should (in any fair distribution) be proportional to its ratio in the population. Therefore rounding according to some (acceptable) rule should be applied.