Gerrymandering facts for kids

Gerrymandering is a clever trick used in politics to draw the borders of voting areas, called districts. The goal is to give one political group an unfair advantage over another. It's like drawing lines on a map to make sure your team wins more often. This idea got its name from Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814), an American politician. Gerrymandering works by spreading out the votes of the opposing team, or by packing their votes into just a few districts. This makes their votes less powerful overall.

What is Gerrymandering?

Gerrymandering happens when politicians redraw the lines of voting districts. They do this to make sure their political party wins more elections. Imagine a map of your state divided into different areas for voting. Each area, or district, elects its own representative.

How Does it Work?

Politicians use two main ways to gerrymander:

• Packing: This means putting many voters who support the other party into just a few districts. This way, the other party wins those few districts by a lot, but they lose many other districts. Their votes are "packed" into a small number of places.
• Cracking: This means spreading out voters who support the other party across many districts. This makes sure they don't have enough votes to win in any single district. Their votes are "cracked" or split up, making them less effective.

Both methods aim to "waste" the votes of the opposing party. This means those votes don't help elect more representatives for that party.

A Simple Example

Let's imagine two groups, Group A and Group B, are trying to win an election.

• In one voting area, Group A has 40 votes and Group B has 50 votes. So, Group B would normally win here.
• In another area nearby, Group A knows Group B will definitely win.

Now, Group A decides to gerrymander. They redraw the district lines. They move 11 votes from Group B's strong area into the area where Group B was already going to win easily.

What happens?

• In the first area, Group B now has 39 votes (50 - 11 = 39). Group A still has 40 votes. So, Group A wins this district (40 to 39).
• In the second area, Group B now has even more votes, but they still only win one representative.

By moving just a few votes, Group A changed the outcome of the first district. This is how gerrymandering can change election results without changing how many people voted for each group overall.

History of the Name

The word "gerrymandering" comes from a political cartoon. In 1812, Elbridge Gerry was the governor of Massachusetts in the United States. His party redrew the voting districts in a very strange way. One district looked like a salamander. People combined Gerry's name with "salamander" to create "Gerry-mander." The name stuck!

Why is it a Problem?

Gerrymandering can make elections unfair. It can mean that:

• The party that wins the most seats might not be the party that got the most votes overall.
• Voters might feel their vote doesn't matter, especially if they are in a district that is "packed" or "cracked."
• Politicians might focus more on pleasing their party than on what's best for everyone. This is because their district is drawn to favor their party, so they don't have to worry as much about winning over other voters.

Images for kids

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  Printed in March 1812, this political cartoon was made in reaction to the newly drawn state senate election district of South Essex created by the Massachusetts legislature to favor the Democratic-Republican Party. The caricature satirizes the bizarre shape of the district as a dragon-like "monster", and Federalist newspaper editors and others at the time likened it to a salamander.

• 

  The image from above appearing in a news article by Elkanah Tisdale in 1813

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  Electoral divisions in the Sydney area, drawn by the politically independent Australian Electoral Commission

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  Smallest possible convex polygons drawn around the 8th (left) and 10th congressional districts in Georgia, 2012. To avoid penalizing large areas, the measure is the ratio of the area of the district to the area of the polygon. District 8 will get a lower score than District 10.

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  U.S. congressional districts covering Travis County, Texas (outlined in red), in 2002, left, and 2004, right. In 2003, the majority Republicans in the Texas legislature redistricted the state, diluting the voting power of the heavily Democratic county by parceling its residents out to more Republican districts.

• 

  Shaw v. Reno was a Supreme Court of the United States case involving the redistricting and racial gerrymandering of North Carolina's 12th congressional district (pictured).

See also

In Spanish: Gerrymandering para niños