Gerrymandering

[ford_prefect42]

Gerrymandering is the process of redrawing electoral districts. It's generally used in a negative context as a form of "electoral cheating", because it can, and often does, favor one party over the other

Comments

[banner]

Here in California all the districts have been gerrymanded to guarentee that the democrats will have a majority in state offices. Some of the districts are over a hundred miles long. The only time they howl here, is when someone tries to make it less insane.

[coercedbynutmeg]

Yup, and the post-2010 redistricting was primarily to keep the same or more Dems in Congress, even when the electorate for a given congressperson changed dramatically.

[kharmii]

That's how it is in Illinois. Even though we just elected a Republican governor, it won't make a difference because we'll always have a Democratic super majority.

[dantheserene]

There are districts around Chicago that aren't even contiguous. I haven't seen that anywhere else.

[ford_prefect42]

Illinois 4th district (the poster-district for gerrymandering, the one with the giant cutout) votes 80% democrat.

That's kind of my point, most of the gerrymandering is done to marry like with like. to give incredibly "safe" districts. That's part of why the re-election rate is so high in congress. But my point is, it gives the most people possible the representative they want.

The other alternative, to divide regions up more geographically, would mean that more people would dislike their *own* representative, but overall representation would be closer to the overall popular vote.