Pros And Cons Of Gerrymandering

Is Gerrymandering a Controversial Topic? Gerrymandering is a process where the ruling political party uses the map of their state to draw lines that create voting districts in favor of their party. The result of this is that it doesn’t reflect the voters political views. For about 200 years the government has used gerrymandering during political elections and it continues to be used today (King, Elizabeth) . But recently gerrymandering has become more controversial because people feel that it has taken away their rights as a voter and it swings the votes to one side by a big percentage. Current cases are before the courts to decide if gerrymandering is legal. Some states have been discussing whether it should still be allowed during elections. “Many efforts are underway to remedy this political

It allows them to use tactics such as packing and cracking which can have a tremendous impact on elections. Packing is when politicians draw out district maps for each party based on population. Packing can swing the vote because the population of one party could out weight the population of the minority party within the same district, causing the entire district to swing with the majority. Voters feel that the other tactic, cracking, gives them a disadvantage because the political parties are being spread out between multiple districts which causes one district to have the majority party in multiple areas (King, Elizabeth). When the politicians of the party in power have drawn out the voters’ map, they maintain power over the lines of the map. This allows the politicians to select one representative from each district to represent the majority of the voters in that district. This can benefit a political party because it allows them to have more seats in the house. “Eliminating gerrymandering would not by itself dramatically increase the competitiveness of house and state….between the two major political parties” (Mann, Thomas