Cutting Out Gerrymandering
Congressional districts are hugely important to our governmental and electoral system and the gerrymandering of these districts has had many negative affects like obvious advantages given to the controlling party, increased party polarization, and the marginalization of certain groups of voters. Gerrymandering is when a state, county, etc. is divided into election districts in a way that favors one political party over another. This is typically done by the party that is in control of the government at that time so it is clear that there is a great deal of influence wielded by the party drawing up the districts.
The advantages that gerrymandering can bring to the majority-holding party can be seen in places like North Carolina where there are about an even number of Democrat to Republican voters yet Republicans hold the majority of congressional seats in North Carolina very comfortably because of their intensely gerrymandered districts. This in turn adds to the already polarized political atmosphere we see today because instead of congressional representatives having to appeal to all voters whether they be Republican, Democrat, or Independent, they can just focus their campaigns to who they know will have the majority share of votes in their district.
Gerrymandering lets one party seize control instead of letting the voters actually decide and allows them to essentially cut out the minority party and voters. The dividing and marginalizing is not limited to party affiliation though, with probably the most egregious type of gerrymandering being focused on marginalizing lower-income areas and minority groups. If multiple counties are consisted of mostly lower income families or certain minority populations who are more likely to vote for a Democrat, then a Republican controlled government would benefit from lumping all of those counties together into one electoral district instead of multiple. This would ensure only one Democrat representative is elected instead of say 3 or 4. This also goes the same for a Democrat controlled government trying to marginalize Republican voters because gerrymandering is a bipartisan issue.
A solution to the the gerrymandering issue is to simply abolish the practice of drawing and re-drawing our electoral districts. Instead we could rely on a computer algorithm like the shortest split-line, that can objectively create the districts based solely on population and without any bias. With the Wisconsin gerrymandering case up for deliberation in the Supreme Court, we will soon find out if this completely biased way of drawing up our electoral districts is here to stay.
The advantages that gerrymandering can bring to the majority-holding party can be seen in places like North Carolina where there are about an even number of Democrat to Republican voters yet Republicans hold the majority of congressional seats in North Carolina very comfortably because of their intensely gerrymandered districts. This in turn adds to the already polarized political atmosphere we see today because instead of congressional representatives having to appeal to all voters whether they be Republican, Democrat, or Independent, they can just focus their campaigns to who they know will have the majority share of votes in their district.
Gerrymandering lets one party seize control instead of letting the voters actually decide and allows them to essentially cut out the minority party and voters. The dividing and marginalizing is not limited to party affiliation though, with probably the most egregious type of gerrymandering being focused on marginalizing lower-income areas and minority groups. If multiple counties are consisted of mostly lower income families or certain minority populations who are more likely to vote for a Democrat, then a Republican controlled government would benefit from lumping all of those counties together into one electoral district instead of multiple. This would ensure only one Democrat representative is elected instead of say 3 or 4. This also goes the same for a Democrat controlled government trying to marginalize Republican voters because gerrymandering is a bipartisan issue.
A solution to the the gerrymandering issue is to simply abolish the practice of drawing and re-drawing our electoral districts. Instead we could rely on a computer algorithm like the shortest split-line, that can objectively create the districts based solely on population and without any bias. With the Wisconsin gerrymandering case up for deliberation in the Supreme Court, we will soon find out if this completely biased way of drawing up our electoral districts is here to stay.
In this post, I will be commenting on the work of my classmate's Blog Stage 8. This blog has a very good argument about why gerrymandering is hurting American Politics and unfair for United States citizens. My classmate argues that gerrymandering gives too much power to the party that is in control and it marginalizes voters in these districts. Gerrymandering is when one political party manipulates the boundaries of districts so that they can get more votes and secure districts which results in their party winning.
ReplyDeleteThis should be illegal in our Government and I'm surprised that it is still around today. As my colleague pointed out, there are solutions that our government could use today that include a computer algorithm. This would seem like the best option, but politicians on both sides need gerrymandering in order to have an edge on their opponent and would do anything to keep it alive. This is why the computer algorithm is not a thing in our Government. In addition, gerrymandering has been around for a very long time and many politicians believe that it is a good system.
Ever since 1812, gerrymandering has been apart of our government and if it was abruptly changed it could have negative effects. It could cause one party to completely control the government which is not good at all. Gerrymandering offers an equal chance for both parties to maximize their votes so neither the Democrats or Republicans are too powerful. This is why I believe that gerrymandering is somewhat good for the United States and why it will not be changed any time soon as there are more important issues that our country needs to fix.