Gerrymandering: Redrawing Voting Districts

What Is Gerrymandering?

Gerrymandering is a tactic used by political parties to get an electoral advantage by redrawing voting districts. This sounds like a cheating way but it is actually legal. Both Republicans and Democrats use this tactic so it does not matter which party uses this. The text states, “… the trick is to create irregularly shaped districts that segregate as many of the opposition’s supporters as possible into a small handful of seats – leaving their own candidates with a much better chance of winning everywhere else.

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Say there are 100,000 Democratic and 100,000 Republican voters in a state and six districts, a GOP legislature would group 80,000 Democrats into two districts. That would mean just 20,000 Democrats spread over the other four districts. I didn’t believe that people were able to use this strategy. This is apparently perfectly legal unless it’s proved by districts. This is a practice that’s been outlawed by the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The article states, “It’s perfectly legal, unless it can be proven that districts are deliberately drawn to several directions.

” It’s a pretty good strategy because it allows politicians who usually won’t get elected, to get elected. But, this is also a bad thing because it allows for other politicians to not get elected when they should be. To most people, gerrymandering is wrong and there is no right to it. Most people believe that gerrymandering should also be eliminated. I also believe that it should be eliminated because of what it does.

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Some politicians work hard to get to where they are now and they don’t get the amount of votes they should because of gerrymandering.