IS IT REALLY GERRYMANDERING?

TOO MANY PEOPLE SCREAM "GERRYMANDERING" WHEN IT ISN'T!

TOO MANY PEOPLE SAY THAT WHAT IS GERRYMANDERED IS FAIR
AND THAT WHAT IS FAIR IS GERRYMANDERED!

• What is gerrymandering?

  Gerrymandering is deliberately drawing election district lines to favor or oppose any party or candidate.

• Examples of gerrymandering

  1. Manipulating boundary lines so some districts vote mainly for one party and others vote mainly for another party.
  2. Manipulating boundary lines so some districts vote mainly for one candidate and others vote mainly for another candidate.
  3. Manipulating boundary lines so some districts are mainly one race or ethnicity and others are mainly another race or ethnicity.
  4. Packing most voters for one party into a single district.
  5. Manipulating boundary lines to move an incumbent into a different district.
  6. Manipulating boundary lines to put two or more incumbents into the same district.
  7. Making an at-large district (multiple offices voted on in the same race).
  8. Obeying a demand to have a district that is all a minority party, a minority race, or a minority ethnic group,
  9. When districts have shapes that cannot be explained by anything but trying to gain vote margins.
  10. When districts have borders that jiggle back and forth a precinct here and there instead of following the county and township lines.
  11. Obeying a demand that the parties must have equal representation when the majority of the population tends to favor one party.

• What is NOT gerrymandering?

  It is not gerrymandering when there is no intent to affect the outcome of an election:

  1. When no map can be created from the available numbers of districts and population centers without quirks.
  2. When some population centers must be treated differently from other population centers.
  3. When the district lines follow natural boundaries (rivers, mountain ridges, city limits, township lines, and jurisdiction limits).
  4. When the political makeup of each district is close to the makeup of the governing body as a whole.
  5. When the number of population centers is close to, but not equal to, the number of districts.
  6. When there are too few districts to be able to create equal districts.
  7. When a party or candidate claims that all of the districts are gerrymandered.

• Examples of not gerrymandering

  1. When there is a district for each population center.
  2. When there are fewer districts than there are population centers.
  3. When one or two districts wind around to fill the spaces between population centers.
  4. When a government denies a demand for a district that is all a minority party, a minority race, or a minority ethnic group,
  5. When a district has an odd shape to avoid moving an incumbent out of his district.
  6. When all of the districts have the same ratios of voters as taken by party (often called gerrymandering by minor party winning no seats).
  7. Many politicians blame gerrymandering as the reason they lost the election.
  8. Any claim that an entire redistricting map is gerrymandered is usually bogus.