For the film, see Gerrymandering (film)."Gerrymander" redirects here. For the arachnids, see Jerrymander (arachnid). For the plants, see Germander.
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In representative electoral systems, gerrymandering (/ˈdʒɛriˌmændərɪŋ/, originally /ˈɡɛriˌmændərɪŋ/)[1][2] is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The manipulation may involve "cracking" (diluting the voting power of the opposing party's supporters across many districts) or "packing" (concentrating the opposing party's voting power in one district to reduce their voting power in other districts).[3] Gerrymandering can also be used to protect incumbents. Wayne Dawkins, a professor at Morgan State University, describes it as politicians picking their voters instead of voters picking their politicians.[4]
The term gerrymandering is a portmanteau of a salamander and Elbridge Gerry,[a][5] Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander. The term has negative connotations, and gerrymandering is almost always considered a corruption of the democratic process. The resulting district is known as a gerrymander (/ˈdʒɛriˌmændər,ˈɡɛri-/). The word is also a verb for the process.[6][7]
^"Gerrymandering Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster". 15 June 2023.
^Wells, John (3 April 2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Pearson Longman. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0.
^"The ReDistricting Game". USC Annenberg's Media Center. Archived from the original on 4 December 2016. Retrieved 10 February 2017.
^Dawkins, Wayne (9 October 2014). "In America, voters don't pick their politicians. Politicians pick their voters". The Guardian.
^"Ask Cokie: Is Gerrymandering Rigging America's Political System?". NPR Morning Edition. 11 October 2017. Retrieved 8 November 2020.
^Elster, Charles (2005). The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 224. ISBN 9780618423156. OCLC 317828351.
^"gerrymander". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins.
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171–185. Look up gerrymander or gerrymandering in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gerrymandering. Articles from...
struggled when partisan gerrymandering occurs such as in Vieth v. Jubelirer (2004) and Gill v. Whitford (2018). Typical gerrymandering cases in the United...
means larger districts, so annihilate the need and practice of gerrymandering, Gerrymandering is the practice of partisan redistricting by means of creating...
state for citizens to vote in. The state has been sued for racially gerrymandering the districts, which resulted in minority voting power being diluted...
hypothesis of no gerrymander if |CEG| > something like 7% often cited as a threshold for evidence of gerrymandering. Gerrymandering Evaluative Proportional...
engage in gerrymandering to benefit political parties or incumbents. In a 1984 case, Davis v. Bandemer, the Supreme Court held that gerrymandered districts...
was the Cheng San GRC. The opposition has charged the government with gerrymandering due to the changing of GRC boundaries at very short notice (see below...
held that partisan gerrymandering is a non-justiciable claim. Breyer wrote in his dissent, "Sometimes purely political 'gerrymandering' will fail to advance...
margins. As a result of the gerrymander, O's seats have cost it more votes than G's seats. The efficiency gap measures gerrymandering and has been scrutinized...
districts. One proposal to eliminate the possibility of extreme partisan gerrymandering calls on using ZIP Codes as the basic units for redistricting. A 1978...
gains as a result of gerrymandering in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas, while Democrats made gains as a result of gerrymandering in Illinois, New Mexico...
least compact districts in the nation, giving rise to suspicions of gerrymandering. The Committee of Seventy, a non-partisan watchdog group for local elections...
increasingly alienated with further disaffection fuelled by practices such as gerrymandering and discrimination in housing and employment. In the late 1960s, nationalist...
and legislative maps on the grounds of either racial gerrymandering or partisan gerrymandering. These states include Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia...
A free elections law, also known as a free and equal elections clause, is a section in many U.S. state constitutions which mandates that elections of public...
on the justiciability of gerrymandering: In the case of Davis v. Bandemer (1986), the Supreme Court held that gerrymandering cases were justiciable under...
Geometry Root Out Gerrymandering?". Science Friday. Retrieved January 26, 2019. "Meet the Math Professor Who's Fighting Gerrymandering With Geometry". The...