Gerrymandering, the practice of drawing district boundaries to achieve political advantage for legislators, involves the manipulation of district boundaries to leave out, or include, specific populations in a particular district to ensure a legislator's reelection or to advantage their party.
Why is it called gerrymandering?
The term gerrymandering is named after American politician Elbridge Gerry (pronounced with a hard “g”; “Gherry”), 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 ...
How often do states redistrict?
Each state draws new legislative district boundaries every ten years.
Who usually draws congressional district lines quizlet?
United States Congress is made up of two houses, which is the Senate and the House of Representatives. In most states, the state legislature draws the boundary lines for each congressional election district. The process of setting up new district lines after reapportionment has been completed is called redistricting.
What is the difference between redistricting and reapportionment?
Redistricting is the process by which new congressional and state legislative district boundaries are drawn. Reapportionment is the reassignment of representation in congressional and state legislative districts due to changes in population, reflected in the Census population data.
What are the 3 types of gerrymandering?
Typical gerrymandering cases in the United States take the form of partisan gerrymandering, which is aimed at favor in one political party or weaken another; bipartisan gerrymandering, which is aimed at protecting incumbents by multiple political parties; and racial gerrymandering, which is aimed at weakening the power ...
Who draws the lines in gerrymandering?
In 25 states, the state legislature has primary responsibility for creating a redistricting plan, in many cases subject to approval by the state governor.
What is gerrymandering in simple terms?
Gerrymandering is when a political group tries to change a voting district to create a result that helps them or hurts the group who is against them. ... It puts more votes of winners into the district they will win so the losers win in another district.
What is another word for gerrymandering?
| pettifoggery dishonesty | fuss jobbery | quibble spat | squabble tiff |
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Why is gerrymandering good quizlet?
Protects incumbents and discourages challengers . Strengthens majority party while weakening minority party. Increases or decreases minority representation.
Who is responsible for actually redrawing congressional district lines quizlet?
Who does redistricting? Process of redrawing legislative boundaries for the purpose of benefiting the party in power. They are drawn by the majority party in that state. So if there are 6 republican congressmen and 5 democrat congressmen the republicans can draw the district lines.
Who is responsible for redrawing congressional district lines quizlet?
Different people are in charge of drawing the district lines in different states. In most states, the state legislature has primary control of the redistricting process, both for state legislative districts and for congressional districts.
How is a congressional district determined?
Each congressional district is expected to be equal in population to all other congressional districts in a state. The boundaries and numbers shown for the congressional districts are established by their respective state's constitution or court orders in the apportionment and redistricting cycle.
What is the difference between redistricting and gerrymandering quizlet?
Redistricting is the process of setting up district lines after reapportionment. Gerrymandering is drawing district boundaries to give one party an advantage. At-large refers to a statewide vote.
What is the purpose of reapportionment?
The Constitutional basis for conducting the decennial census is to reapportion the U.S. House of Representatives. Apportionment is the process of dividing the 435 memberships, or seats, in the U.S. House of Representatives among the 50 states. Historical apportionment data for the nation and states.
What is Malapportionment gerrymandering?
Malapportionment is the creation of electoral districts with divergent ratios of voters to representatives. For example, if one single-member district has 10,000 voters and another has 100,000 voters, voters in the former district have ten times the influence, per person, over the governing body.
