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What is gerrymandering?

Is Adam Ruins Everything - Why Rigging Elections Is Completely Legal an accurate description of gerrymandering?

What was the original idea behind it?

Rick Smith
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    You should try doing some basic research (ahem [Wikipedia] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering) or similar), and then ask a more detailed question if something is not covered/explained enough with those basic sources. – SJuan76 Oct 28 '16 at 11:44
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    @SJuan76 : If I'm not supposed to either ask an in depth question like this nor a high level question like What is gerrymandering?, what's the friggin' point of politics.SE? Can you please remind me again what kind of questions politics.SE is intended for? I'm totally puzzled, really —— By the way, I tried to be specific, by referencing Adam Ruins Everything's explanation of gerrymandering as a source. –  Oct 28 '16 at 11:55
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    Your other question was not too deep (relates to a very complicated issue), it was too broad (asks a lot of issues in one question). The only issue with too deep questions is that, if there is no member in the public with enough knowledge of the issues, it might go unanswered. – SJuan76 Oct 28 '16 at 12:00
  • @SJuan76 : So what's the issue with shallow question, then? Considering gerrymandering doesn't even exist in my country, am I really expected to do research on it before I can ask a question about it here? –  Oct 28 '16 at 12:05
  • I agree with @SJuan76. This question is too broad and the answer can easily be found by doing a little more research. Here's a WashingtonPost article explaining he history and idea behind it. – Noah Oct 28 '16 at 12:40
  • Considering gerrymandering does not exist in my country, I only first learnt about gerrymandering on Adam Ruins Everything's video on gerrymandering. They explained it pretty well, I think, and all I want to know, really, is how accurate their explanation is and how Americans make sense of it. Do I really have to wade through a lengthy Wikipedia video, when someone familiar with the concept could just give me a reasonably answer question here on politics.SE? Isn't that what politics.SE is intended for? –  Oct 28 '16 at 12:44
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    The question would be better posed if it wasn't essentially just a link. I don't know what's in the video, and I don't have the time to watch right now. So even though I know a bit about gerrymandering, I can't possibly answer it as presented. Summing up the main points of the video and asking about a specific part would probably work better. – Geobits Oct 28 '16 at 14:50
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    For what it's worth, I think this question is just fine and perfectly on-topic, with the exception of the video link without a brief summary (as @Geobits mentioned). – Bobson Oct 28 '16 at 16:01
  • The question is on-topic (rightfully so, "General Reference" VTC reason was burned out of SE network). Having said that, it is very low quality in that it does not show any reseach effort (which is the wording taken from downvote-arrow-button help), and the expected research effort (Google the word and read the Wiki article that's on top) isn't exactly something that requires expertise or deep knowledge. As such, it fully deserves to be downvoted. – user4012 Oct 28 '16 at 17:13

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Gerrymandering is the act of redefining borders between voting districts in order to gain a political advantage. The practice is named after the US politician Elbridge Gerry, who was the governor of Massachusetts from 1810 to 1812. In 1812 he redefined the voting districts of Massachusetts. After that reform, one voting district had roughly the shape of a salamander, which was nicknamed "the Gerry-mander" by the press.

How can a politician benefit from this?

Some countries have an election system where the country is divided into multiple districts. When the country votes for president/parliament/whatever, every district is counted separately, and whatever option has the most votes in that district wins that district. When counting the election result on the national level, the whole district is considered as voting for the winning option, no matter how close that win actually was.

This system can lead to an interesting side-effect: It is possible to win an election without winning the popular vote. Let's say your country has 5 districts, and two parties (dog party and cat party). These are the vote counts of the election:

District  Cat  Dog Winner
1         11   1   Cat
2         8    2   Cat
3         3    4   Dog
4         9    10  Dog
5         4    5   Dog
--------------------------
Sum       35   22

As you can see, there were far more people who voted the Cat Party than people who voted the Dog Party. But the Dog Party still won the election, because they won three districts while the cats only won two.

How could that happen? It's because the cat lovers are concentrated on two districts while the dog lovers are more evenly distributed, giving them a small majority in the others. If the borders between the districts were redefined, the election result could be completely different. By concentrating all the followers of the other party in few districts, one can greatly increase the chance to win such elections. This gives great power to whoever has the power to define the borders between voting districts.

Another reason to perform gerrymandering is to improve the reelection chance of a specific person. Let's say each district votes for their district representative. Fido of the dog party currently governs district 3 and would like to get re-elected. But unfortunately he recently said something very insulting about the dogs in a city at the eastern border of the district and they hate him now. His re-election is in danger. Fido could now ask his friends in the federal dog party to change district borders to make that problematic city a part of the neighboring district 2. That district is a solid cat district anyway, so some disgruntled dog-voters can't cause much damage over there. In exchange Fido could get another part of another district which is decidedly pro-dog.

In case you wonder "why is this legal?". Because someone must have the authority to define voting districts. Whoever is in power in a country decides who gets that authority. And considering how powerful of a tool Gerrymandering can be to stay in power, they would be stupid to not give that power to themselves.

Philipp
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  • So Adam Ruins Everything's explanation of gerrymandering is pretty much accurate, right? What was the original idea behind it? Is anyone actually convinced this is a fair system? ( → In my country, Belgium, such a system is unheard of) Who has the power to decide exactly how districts are combined to form districts? –  Oct 28 '16 at 12:41
  • @JohnSlegers How the current voting districts and the rules for making them came into being is a historical question which will have a different answer depending on what country/state exactly you are asking about. If you are interested in the history of voting districts of a specific state, please ask it as a new question. – Philipp Oct 28 '16 at 12:44
  • So it's not like the way different counties make up different voting districts are changed with every election, right? How often DO they change, then? Is it something like once every generation? –  Oct 28 '16 at 12:49
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    @JohnSlegers Different countries have different practices. Please ask a new question about a specific country. – Philipp Oct 28 '16 at 12:50
  • Well, in that case, I'm referring to the concept of gerrymandering as it is practiced in the US. –  Oct 28 '16 at 12:52
  • @JohnSlegers New question. – Philipp Oct 28 '16 at 12:54
  • → → Gerrymandering in the US ← ← –  Oct 28 '16 at 13:03
  • @Brythan It does happen with districts though, to ensure the re-election of the district representative. But I agree I might find a better example for that. – Philipp Oct 28 '16 at 14:43
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    California in 2000 is a real-life example. Democrats and Republicans created an incumbent redistricting, shifting Democrat voters from Republican to Democrat districts and vice versa. Or Tim Murphy who created (as a state legislator) the congressional district in which he later ran. – Brythan Oct 28 '16 at 14:48
  • @Brythan I rewrote that part. – Philipp Oct 28 '16 at 14:51
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    @JohnSlegers We have a census every 10 years and that is generally when districts are redrawn as they have to take into account the changes in population densities of different regions. – Readin Nov 03 '16 at 06:59
  • Something to consider is that the larger the group gets the larger the imbalance for controlling power gets. Take a group of 1000 people that is divided into 10 groups. If the smaller group can control the breakup of people they can make 6 groups of 51-49 and 4 groups of 0-100 and win 60% of the groups while only being 30.6% of the total group 306 versus 694. While this is an extreme case it shows how a small group can maintain a majority of the power and it scales down to 25% can control over 50% of the power. – Joe W Oct 12 '21 at 16:37
  • @user3025: Its not whether this is "fair", its whether everything was done according to the rules. If you are going to have voting districts then you are going to have a redistricting process. Controlling that process lets you put a thumb on the scales, so there is a strong incentive to gain control. (BTW, places where the two parties share control get gerrymandered differently: districts are drawn to divide up "safe" seats that the parties can then hand out to the people they favour). – Paul Johnson Oct 13 '21 at 10:29
  • One thing about this process is that the party doing the gerrymandering will create an increasingly fragile situation for themselves. Look at the Cat-Dog example: a small swing to the Cat party is going to create a landslide victory in the legislature. – Paul Johnson Oct 13 '21 at 10:32