Gerrymandering happens after a census, that takes place in every ten years. After the census seats in the House of Representatives are allotted to each state. Then lines are redrawn to accommodate population shifts and keep districts as equal as possible in population. Gerrymandering is the process of redrawing congressional districts lines to benefit a party, group, or incumbent. Gerrymander started when Massachusetts governor, Elbridge Gerry, redistricted Boston region and made a salamander-shaped district, in order to benefit his political party. Gerrymander is an evil yet brilliant process used by parties. One of the techniques used is cracking ,when splitting the opposite party into multiple surrounding districts in order to reduce their influence in the election. An example would be Austin, …show more content…
With gerrymandering, the voters in the minority groups would be ignored. However, the minority party doesn’t mean the minority of the popular votes. In the article written by Sam Wang, it states, “Democrats received 1.4 million more votes for the House of Representatives, yet Republicans won control of the House by a 234 to 201 margin.” This proves that the use of gerrymandering does not represent the people. Some people may feel that gerrymandering makes their vote useless and not vote in the midterm elections and all the other elections that aren’t the presidential election. In America, the voter turnout in the latest midterm election was 36.4 percent. That is 21.6 percent less than the voter turnout for the presidential election in 2016. People may feel that voting in the midterm election doesn’t matter due to the fact that they feel there is no point in voting for their candidate when the another party is the majority in the district. This isn’t true, but if enough people believe in this statement, fewer people would vote in the midterm