By Ande Jacobson

Gerrymandering is a practice that has a long history in the U.S., and no matter who’s doing it, it’s cheating by taking away the voices of the electorate and predetermining an outcome based on partisanship. In practice, it’s done by drawing electoral district boundaries to serve the party doing the drawing by silencing the voices of any opposition through packing or cracking any voting blocks in the party’s favor. Packing entails grouping large blocks of opposition voters together even if they wouldn’t normally be in single district to limit how many districts they can control. Cracking entails breaking up opposition party blocks across districts and separating them further to dilute their votes. In short, gerrymandering is a method of voter suppression and election fraud that’s unfortunately legal but completely unethical. While electoral districts should be effectively a grid based on population density, instead, gerrymandered districts tend to resemble abstract art. Both major parties have engaged in various levels of the practice over the years, and it stems from serious corruption and an inability to compete fairly in an election. Continue reading →