The Redistricting And Reappointment Process

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

The gerrymandering process allows the majority party within a given state to maximize the number of seats it can win in the future elections. This leads it into creating as many districts as possible where it constitutes the majority. By doing this, those who support the minority parties are packed into the remaining few districts. This results in more electoral security for the minority party and less electoral security for the members of the minority parties. It also produces greater homogeneity within the districts while reducing competition for the house seats. Apart from the positive effects of gerrymandering, there are a number of negative effects associated with partisan gerrymandering. This process results in more competitive districts when compared to the non competitive districts and this in turn ambiguously affects polarization. Partisan gerrymandering also affects the state legislative electoral competitiveness as it has severe partisan biases. Excessive partisan gerrymandering is the violation of the equal protection clause since it consigns the

In order to combat gerrymandering, it is important to understand how and why a district is

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,

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).

“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.

After the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, congressional seats are move around the nation after each decennial census However, each state is entitled to one seat, no matter how large its

struggle for democracy” (Greenberg 2014, pg. 287). Problems do remain at the polls and also

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

Gerrymandering may prevent the purpose of members being elected on a single-member district basis because districts can be drawn favoring one political party. Gerrymandering is when districts have been drawn so the boundaries of legislative districts in bizarre or unusual shapes to favor one party. Gerrymandering protects incumbents and discourages challengers and it strengthens the majority party while weakening the opposition party

gerrymandering is a term that refers to someone use an unfair manipulation to change the election distinction in order to keep the interests of the party. It occurs when legislature let more political party supporters region included in the same district as the party candidate which allows the legislature's party to overwhelming victory. Yes, I think we need to end this practice because I believe it is unfair to the other candidate. If the gerrymandering happens, then what is the significance of the vote. There should have someone stand out to oversee the districting of the states. The United States as a country with freedom, equality, and justice, we should not allow this practice happen in any state it is not going to be helpful. The purpose

As long as people in positions of power are able to influence the process of drawing district boundaries, it can never be fair. In this viewpoint, the notion of fair being a myth under the current circumstances is present. However, if the task was delegated to a private company, there is a greater opportunity for a fair outcome- if a fair outcome could ever exist, it would come from privatization. The way the districts are created can and will decide an election, so as long is it can be influenced by government officials and those looking to be reelected, as long as it is being abused to create an outcome suited for a certain group of people, as long as it is left in the hands of legislatures, corruption will continue to be the most prevalent association with

Proportional representation is an electoral system where parties will earn congressional seats in proportion to how many votes people cast for them. This would be an extreme opposite to the result of gerrymandering. People would then feel the need to vote because they know that their vote will actually go towards something. If 25% of the voters supported a certain party, that party would then get about 25% of congressional seats. Proportional representation is a way that could help fix the unfairness of the plurality system. The plurality system allows for larger parties to get an unfair amount of congressional seats whereas smaller parties do not have this advantage and also have a huge difficulty in winning any representation at all, also known as Duverger’s law. This would be a great way to prevent gerrymandering which helps with the redistricting issue majorly. Proportional representation could be brought in without a constitutional amendment in some cases, but the system born from this would not work well unless the powers of the Governor General were made clear. What would require a constitutional amendment would be a change to the powers of the Governor General. If it were simple enough to not require a constitutional amendment, I feel as if this would be an excellent idea and help solve many problems and unhappy people with our current

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

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.