Gerrymandering: Democracy and District Lines
Each decade politicians become wound up for the political war of who will win the control of Congress for the next decade or possibly longer. One of the most effective ways of manipulating elections, shy of corruption, is gerrymandering. Gerrymandering (pronounced “garrey” mandering not “jerry” mandering) is the government’s advantage of one political party over another. It is the process of drawing weirdly shaped lines to define a district. The term is derived from Elbridge Gerry, who was one of the founding fathers, who drew a weirdly shaped district that resembles a salamander, it was henceforth dubbed gerrymandering. One of the unfortunate truths in American society and political life is that although we are told that each individual vote counts, the reality is that sometimes people’s votes are less equal. Political power in Congress is based upon population, the bigger the state is, for example California and Texas, the bigger the reward is of more seats in Congress, rather than Rhode Island or Delaware. The states with a higher population are appointed more seats and they get those seats from the states with fewer people that are counted from the census. The effervescent image of American democracy is that of a vibrant government that is open to change and subject to will of its voters, unfortunately this is an illusion. The problem with redrawing lines is that it eliminates the evaluation process that the public has by preventing competitive elections. I feel like it is just another loophole, oppressive scheme for political officials to try and dictate against us. Politicians seem to have the mutual feeling that it is a birth right for them to represent certain districts but we are still in a democracy, not a dictatorship or a monarchy, we have the right to elect who we feel represents our communities voice most appropriately and violating that right by eliminating the person we feel best suites us from our district it is violating our Constitutional and