Gerrymandering is defined as, the manipulation of the boundaries, of an electoral constituency, in order to favor one political party. Gerrymandering is used when it is time to re-draw voting boundaries, in a process known as redistricting, and the party in power wants to maintain power, so they draw the new boundaries in weird, elongated shapes. Gerrymandering has been implemented all over Texas.
Gerrymandering is usually practiced in three distinct forms: Wasted Vote, Excess Vote, and Stacked Vote. Wasted vote is used when the party in power, or in charge of the redistricting process has a higher support. To make sure they win a majority vote in every single district, they redraw the boundaries, so there is a slight majority of their supporters
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This act, passed by the 89th Congress, is considered one of the most important Civil Rights acts ever passed. This bill allowed anyone, no matter what race, to vote freely, without worrying about being accosted of claims of illiteracy, insufficient education, etc… This contributed to the controversy in Texas, because the way voting districts were drawn at the time, using Stacked Vote gerrymandering, meant that districts were often times drawn based on race. Before the act was passed; this led to the white population in the districts—Remember this was during the Civil Rights Era—often times preventing the, “Colored Population”, from voting, citing reasons such as; Lack of Knowledge, and Illiteracy. This acts passing stopped all of that. The acts passing created another problem. There were thousands of new, colored people who could vote freely, without being bogged down with excuses why it wasn't right for them to vote. This new voting demographic, meant that the political parties were rushing to align themselves with this new group, in order to gain more votes. Since most districts in Texas are separated based on race, financial standings, and/or political viewpoints, many political candidates advertise their campaigns differently in different districts, determined by the aforementioned characteristics. This results in accusation from