Drawing Lines in Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering is a curious term used to describe the process by which electoral district lines are drawn irregularly to try to gain the upper hand in political representation. Often, it is based on the principle of the Apportionment Act of 1842, which divided voters into congressional districts that would each send one representative to Congress. Normally, it is seen as a way to maximize the number of Congressional representatives for a certain party, even if the votes are near equal or even in the other party's favor, by exploiting the borders of each district. 

The original word comes from a combination of Elbridge Gerry, a Massachusetts governor who created a bill in 1812 that redistricted areas to benefit his party, and "salamander", a word indicative of the crazy shapes that redistricting could create on maps. However, there were incidents of gerrymandering even before the name, notably when Patrick Henry attempted to win a seat in Congress over James Madison in 1788 by redistricting the 5th District.

Gerrymandering was even arguably used for good purposes. The Voting Rights Act of 1964 included the idea of "affirmative gerrymandering", where districts that had a majority of minority voters were created to included more minorities, proportionally, in deciding a state's Congressional representation. Section 5 of the Act also prevented anti-minority discriminatory gerrymandering in a few Southern States.

Often, the process, even though it is technically legal and constitutional, has been harshly criticized for being undemocratic, in that it attempts to change the true public opinion away from a purely equal republican system. The party in power, notably in states like North Carolina, attempt to change district lines in their favor to stay in power after the next election cycle.

As each independent party gets better and better at gerrymandering, districts end up looking like this:

It has been calculated by journalists that gerrymandering as late as the 2012 election resulted in the Democratic Party being "underrepresented" by as many as 18 seats in the House to what they really should have gotten under popular representation.

According to the Washington Post, an analysis of gerrymandered districts based on how "compact", or fitting to a geometric shape they are, shows the general strategy, which is not to ensure wins, but to group all of the opponent's supporters into a single district so that one may win the other contested districts.

Works Cited:

Emily Barasch, Sep 19 2012, "The Twisted History of Gerrymandering in American Politics," Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/the-twisted-history-of-gerrymandering-in-american-politics/262369/

Robert Draper, October 2012, "The League of Dangerous Mapmakers," Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/10/the-league-of/309084/

Christopher Ingraham, 3-1-2015, "This is the best explanation of gerrymandering you will ever see," Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/01/this-is-the-best-explanation-of-gerrymandering-you-will-ever-see/