http://planning.maryland.gov/...10maps/Cong/Statewide.pdf

If Gerrymandering like that is acceptable, why can't I drive 50 mph in a 25mph zone, and then claim I wasn't speeding because I was planning on spending a half hour with my car going 0 mph to even things out?

I don't know what link you meant to post, but I don't think it was the right one...

What's gerrymandering?

Gerrymandering is redrawing political districts for partisan advantage.

Oh. Nevermind. I thought gerrymandering was some sort of traffic thing since you compared it to speeding.

Gerrymandering is only possible because it's usually done by politicians. Basic rules, laws, and logic are applied differently for them, as opposed to us little people, which the executive branch of the US govt was specifically designed to be used against.

i don't understand the colours

I interpret it to mean that the colors are the legislative districts.

Taking number 4 (pink) as an example, we see that it has some bizarre shape, clearly meant to include or exclude some area.

then what are the black lines? new districts? old ?

No more gerrymandered than any other state. Texas in 2003 being the great example.

Black lines are county borders... the 'natural' political boundaries.

just grab a 70 mph sign and put it on the passenger seat.

well, i guess you should post it on the passenger seat.

Illinois has a district or two like that as well. The Illinois 17th Congressional District is where my parents live in, and it's ridiculous. There's no way a representative can effectively represent those particular areas well.

I'm not sure how exactly you could make laws that really stop gerrymandering, but it certainly isn't right.

hawkeyee: Also, to explain why/how it's used: It's done to strengthen one party's position. Illinois is a perfect example, since Chicago and small pockets around the state are Democratic, while most of downstate is Republican.

Many of the districts are drawn in a way where one party will win most of the districts, while the other part will soundly win a couple of districts by landslides, because the votes are being moved around to make sure one side wins more congressional seats than the other.

@hawkeyee: it happens to a lesser extent in Canada (see federal electoral map for Edmonton for example) although the lack of constant pop/riding is a bigger issue here (not so in the US).

I"m told that the word "gerrymandering" comes from a politician called Gerry who drew a district that looked like a salamander.. hence the word "gerrymander".

The simple solution to this issue is to go towards allocated seats by proportional representation: so if reps win 65% of the vote, they get 65% of the seats. If you are worried about fringe parties then you set a minimum % before you can get a seat :P
I think that some states allocate electoral votes by this method..

I might be misinterpreting what you're saying, but if I'm not, this is a terrible idea. This takes out all individualism in politics. Instead of voting for a representative that is beholden to the people of my district, I'm now voting simply for a party who will appoint someone to my district who will be beholden to the party, not the people. Even if it were a state-by-state election, it just would have more negative effects than positive in my mind. Of course, I say this coming from Illinois where it's virtually two different states: Chicago and the rest of the state. There'd be even greater disparity between how many funds go to Chicago vs. how many funds go to places like Peoria, Quincy and Bloomington.

And you're partially right on the last statement: Some states allocate electoral votes by this method in the primaries. The general election is still winner take all by state though.

Wow. CD2 and CD3 are ridiculous.

@Twain: how many people vote for the individual vs the party?
If the districts are all equally represented party population wise, why would Chicago get any more representation under one method than the other. I concede that the US system is somewhat unique in the sense that historically politicians tend to vote far less along party lines than in other democracies, although recent US federal politics seems to contradict this a little. This makes the individual representatives more important. One counterargument to this is that this then favors individuals with money although that's somewhat debatable (globally).
Neither method is perfect. If you look globally, the bulk of democratic countries vote by the method i described very mostly stable and solid results (italy aside).

Here is the real question though: how democratic is it to be able to change the outcome of an election simply by redrawing lines on a map?


Mind you I live in a country where this also happens, but the influence on the outcome is minor (probably only swings very very few districts), however at our federal level given that 10-15% of our districts (to use your term) are won/lost by extremely small margins, it might start becoming more of an issue..

Hopefully I can split this quote up the way it seems like I should be able to....



Let's take these one at a time: I do. I'm a Democrat with a Republican Congressman that I've voted for in both 2008 and 2010. If the Democrats run someone I agree with more, I'll gladly switch that out and vote for a Democrat, but when it comes to Congressmen, there's probably a lot more voting for individuals than parties than with Presidential or Senate elections.



Easy. If I'm a Democratic congressman who has been appointed to Springfield, IL, then if I want my party to continue to do well so I keep my job, I pander not to my locals but to the largest group of people. So instead of worrying about what Springfield needs, I do whatever's necessary to make the millions of people in Chicago happy, becuase ultimately those votes far outweigh the 120,000 people in Springfield. Besides, there's absolutely zero accountability in your system for an individual because then if I do a fluffty job representing Springfield, but I've got seniority or am well-liked by the Illinois Democratic Party, I'll just be appointed somewhere else presumably.



I'm not a fan of it, but it's done for a very good reason--to make sure that districts are proportional to the national population. The fact that people make goofy districts for their own party's gain is a side-effect, but ultimately the intention is still good. I still much prefer having one guy that is in charge of actually representing me and my neighbors and knowing that if he does a crappy job of it, I can vote against him.

Tennessee's US House Districts don't look that bad. The state house and senate districts, however, are thoroughly gerrymandered.

The rule for creating districts is that they must be a continuous area (no matter how tenuously they are continued), There are exceptions to this for islands...or in the case of Kentucky for the little piece that should belong to Tennessee but they refused to give it up despite the fact that to get to Fulton County, Kentucky you have to drive through TN. I grant you, Kentucky was a state and you could get to the area that is Fulton County before an Earth Quake on the New Madrid fault changed the course of the Mississippi River in 1812. (That, for the record, is your geography lesson for the day.)

Edit: It's actually just a small piece of Fulton County, KY that you have to drive through TN to get to. On another note, the documentary "How the States Got Their Shapes" is pretty interesting (at least for some states).

I can't imagine Utah has a very interesting story behind it's shape:P
Some of the states that got boundaries altered/made just before/after the civil war are rather interesting though.
In canada it's rather boring. We drew straight lines down a map for the most part:P Parts of Quebec/Newfoundland are still under dispute though...

Utah's shape is easy. Mormons were on the outs with the government, so a chunck of Utah territory was given to Wyoming.

The story behind West Virginia, however, is very interesting. How did West Virginia come to exist when to partition a state, you need the permission of that state? The Union decided to recognize the western counties of Viriginia that were seceding from the Confederacy as the legitimate government of Virginia. Thereafter, the Virginians just gave themselves permission to form a new state called West Virginia and the Union agreed to allow that to happen. The State of Virginia that exists today from a legal standpoint holds no connection to the State of Virginia that fought in the Revolution and ratified the Constitution. Virginia was not so much readmitted as it was admitted into the union after the Civil War (from a legal POV).

In the case of Kentucky, Tennessee already "stole" a huge swath of legal Kentucky land including the city of Clarksville. I doubt they would want to give up any more.

Effective gerrymandering by "party x" will redraw the lines as to increase the number of seats that party x will gain, or to make it more likely that those seats that party x already has will become safe seats. Find statistical evidence that this is the results of the changes that have been made and then I'll pay attention, because doing it properly is a difficult task that I would consider far and away beyond the ability of any mere politician to do.

Wait, you think the politicians are the people actually drawing these maps? Nah, the X party of TN (OH, etc.) has hired professionals to draw the actual lines; party Y also has professionals drawing their counter proposals. All the politicians do is trade horses with one another until one party can force through a map that favors them. Oh, I grant you that it doesn't always happen that way, but relatively even compromise is rather rare.

You just need to look at the state of california as an example of abuse of gerimandering. Also the party turn over rates vs changes in % vote.

Every state has them and both parties do it. Its been the way its been done forever, and which ever party is not in control of the state governments cry foul about it every time.

Politics is all messed up in the USA (and prob most of the world).