Gerrymandering Benefit Political Parties

During political elections, or the presidential election per say, the election process can be hectic. Political parties strenuously work to convince people to favor their candidates. They perform this in order to receive political control and to rise in the governmental system. Two infamous political parties that are always competing are the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. The lure of gerrymandering is enticing because they take control of a state legislature by advancement of redistricting.

Hello Erik, I really like how you explain gerrymandering. I also agree with you that racial gerrymandering is worse than partisan gerrymandering. Gerrymandering altogether is bad and create a lot of problem and it mess with the result of the election. I really like it when you said “Racial gerrymandering is aimed towards a specific racial group and leads to the unfair and unequal treatment based upon race while partisan gerrymandering is not based upon race.” That pretty much sum it up

What is a constituency, and why do constituencies differ for representatives and senators? A constituency is a group of individual voters in a specific area who elect a representative to a legislative body. Constituencies differ for representatives and senators: • Representatives – represent a district or area of a state and sometimes a whole state • Senators – represent the whole state Explain briefly how reapportionment and redistricting work? Why is gerrymandering frowned upon?

Gerrymandering Gerrymandering is the redrawing of political boundaries, otherwise known as district lines, in a state to give one party a numeric advantage over the opposing party. This is done by dividing districts up into highly irregular sections to achieve the goal of having voters from a particular party highly concentrated in some areas and thinly scattered in other areas (Donnelly, Fortune). Gerrymandering has been criticized because it violates the two basic principles in electoral designation; compactness and equality of size of constituencies in electoral designation (The Editors, Britannica). There is currently no law against the process of Gerrymandering. However, the current Supreme Court case Gill v. Whitford could change that.

Party polarization is the division between the two major parties on most policy issues, with members of each party is unified around their party’s position with little crossover. The competing explanations for polarization are how congressional representatives are elected, lawmakers selecting a candidate for office and as congressional districts and states have become more homogeneous. Every 10 years, congressional district geographic boundaries are redrawn so that each district has roughly the same population. These districts are increasingly drawn to be safe for one political party or another so that the district has a clear majority of either republicans or Democrats. This process is known as gerrymandering.

In the article Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America, Morris Fiorina addresses the issue of the illusion of political polarization. Political polarization is the separation of political beliefs into two separate extremes. The main illustration Fiorina uses is the use the electoral map. The electoral map is used to gauge which party won an election or polling.

Gerrymandering restrictions is likely to be a key topic of debate for the Supreme Court as partisan lines have tested the constitutionality of the act. While this process of redrawing boundary lines has been around for a long time, it is not the same that it once was. The act of gerrymandering and redrawing boundaries has become more of a drastic partisan act in the modern election world than ever before because of technology. The 1986 Supreme Court ruling in Davis v. Bandemer declared partisan gerrymandering for electoral advantage justiciable under the United States Constitution. The asymmetry standard in testing for gerrymandering states that the act needs to exhibit intentions that partisan gerrymandering would be recognized for its given distribution of popular votes, if parties switch who holds the popular vote and if the number of seats in a district would change unequally based on Supreme Court cases Vieth v. Jubelirer and LULAC v. Perry.

Political Parties serve a crucial role in congressional campaigns, especially for candidate recruitment. One significant role political parties serve is the state law of redistricting, “Because the composition of House districts can make the difference between winning and losing, the two major parties and individual politicians, particularly incumbents, often fight fierce battles in state legislatures over the alignment of districts.” (Smith, et al., 2007). Similar to my previous discussion, the congressional district map is crucial to the success of political parties and gerrymandering is just apart of the nature of political parties. In order for political parties to completely reap the benefits of their constituents, they must draw a map that serves their best interest.

This is undemocratic because it allows political leaders or people of high power to choose which party will govern that district and it may make it harder for the majority of the people and voters in a specific area to get what they want. Two districts may be mainly democratic and 2 districts may be mainly republican but politicians may choose to change the districts as 3 districts to be republican and 1 district to be democratic. The general public does not have a say in this therefore it is undemocratic. The act of gerrymandering has been proven to severely change the outcome of democracy by allowing politicians to choose what they want rather than let the voters who represent democracy choose. It is unfair to the party to the party that is trying to compete against the party which gerrymanders.

Is Gerrymandering a Controversial Topic? Gerrymandering is a process where the ruling political party uses the map of their state to draw lines that create voting districts in favor of their party. The result of this is that it doesn’t reflect the voters political views. For about 200 years the government has used gerrymandering during political elections and it continues to be used today (King, Elizabeth) .

The Electoral College requires a presidential candidate to have trans-regional appeal. Trans-regional appeal is when a presidential candidate tries to appeal to all or more than one region. No region has enough electoral votes to elect a president. For example, “So a solid regional favorite, such as Romney was in the South, has no incentive to campaign heavily in those states, for he gains no electoral votes by increasing his popularity in states that he knows he will.” The Electoral College makes it so that presidential candidates have to campaign in more than one region to get more support.

The first involves the ability to get to the ballot box and cast a vote: these are

Finally, it will be argued that the modern political party system in the United States is a two-party system dominated by the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. These two parties have won every United States presidential election since 1852 and have controlled the United States Congress since 1856. The Democratic Party generally positions itself as centre-left in American politics and supports a modern American liberal platform, while the Republican Party generally positions itself as centre-right and supports a modern American conservative platform. (Nichols, 1967)

Voting represents the collective choice, during the voting process, individuals' preferences are taken together, and eventually they aggregate their diverse opinion into a social choice. Although there are many alternative voting systems, they cannot always deliver in all situations. The reason is stated by Arrow, and it shows that it is impossible to find a perfect system. Therefore, it is important to weigh up the strength and weakness, then choose appropriate method among various alternative

A democracy is a system of government that gives the people the power to govern. This can either be done directly, where citizens actively participate in the decision making of the country, or indirectly through elected representatives. The purpose of the democratic process is to protect the interests of all citizens of a country. In order to do so, every citizen in the country needs a medium through which to express his political opinion to defend his interests. This is the role of political parties.