Before we explain what that is, imagine an election where one party gets the most votes,

but because of the way the votes are grouped, the other party wins the election. Doesn’t

really seems like democracy, right? Well, this sort of “vote grouping” occurs in

nearly every state. And it helps incumbent parties maintain their power in the legislature,

even in cases when the majority of people don’t want them there. So, what exactly

is Gerrymandering, and how does it work?

Well, every state has a certain number of congressional districts, depending on the

state’s population. Every two years, voters in those districts elect a single Representative

to Congress. Every ten years the boundaries of these districts may be redrawn to represent

the changing population.

Gerrymandering is the practice of redrawing congressional districts in order to group

all of an opposing party’s voters into a few large districts, while grouping all the

controlling party’s voters into many smaller districts. Since each district gets a single

representative, regardless of size, you end up with drastically unequal representation

in Congress.

You can see Gerrymandering in practice by looking at North Carolina’s 2012 House elections.

The results showed about 50% voting Democrat, and 48% voting Republican. However, only four

democrats were elected, compared to 9 Republicans. It is probably unsurprising that North Carolina

alone holds three of the most gerrymandered districts in the country.

But how can this practice be legal? Well, in 1986, the Supreme Court ruled that the

practice could potentially violate the 14th Amendment on Equal Protection. However they

could not agree on a standard for what actually constituted Gerrymandering, or figure out

an alternative solution. In 2004, the Supreme Court revisited the issue, this time saying

that the problem was unsolvable. Since the court could not rule one way or the other,

it could not be ruled unconstitutional and is therefore still technically legal.

Gerrymandering has long been understood to stand in the way of true democracy, while

helping partisan politicians consolidate power. Currently the Supreme Court is examining the

issue of constitutionality of using independent groups to draw district lines, instead of

biased legislators. Some have pointed to the Republican congressional victory in 2014 as

a direct result of Gerrymandering.  States like Pennsylvania voted nearly half Democrat,

but only got about a quarter of the available seats. One of the anti-Gerrymandering bill’s

sponsors put it best: instead of voters choosing their representatives, representatives end

up choosing their voters.

Political parties in America are also preventing people from voting with a number of other

somewhat scary tactics... To learn more about this serious issue, take a look at our video

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