gerrymandering
verb

- the practice of dividing or arranging a territorial unit into election districts” to give one party an unfair advantage.

- changing territorial borders to increase the number of people likely to vote for a particular party or person.

- dividing constituencies to give one party an unfair advantage; also, more broadly, manipulating something to one's advantage.

Merriam-Webster, Cambridge Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

“Gerrymander” is a blend of the surname “Elbridge Gerry” and “salamander”.

Gerry was governor of Massachusetts in 1812. During his governorship, Massachusetts voting districts were redrawn in a way that benefited his Democratic-Republican Party. One particularly strange district in Essex County was said to resemble a salamander.

A political cartoon transformed the district into a monster complete with claws and wings. The accompanying label was “The Gerry-mander.” The term appeared in the Boston Gazette on 26 March 1812 and caught on remarkably quickly. By the same year, gerrymander was being used as both a noun and a verb.

There is an amusing twist: Gerry himself did not necessarily invent or even enthusiastically embrace the practice for which his name became immortal. His name simply became attached to the map and the controversy surrounding it.

Even more curious: Gerry's surname was originally pronounced with a hard G, whereas gerrymander is now normally pronounced with a soft G, roughly JERRY-mander.

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RIGGING THE MAP


Imagine ten people: six support Party A and four support Party B.

You might expect Party A to win roughly 60% of the representation. But what if you are allowed to decide where those people live on the electoral map?

You could put most of Party A's supporters into one or two districts, where they win by a huge majority. Then you could spread the remaining supporters across several other districts, where they are outnumbered.

The result? Party B could win more districts despite having fewer voters overall.

That's the basic idea behind gerrymandering.

Two associated terms are "packing" and "cracking":
— "Packing" means concentrating opposition voters in a small number of districts. They win those districts, but their votes have little effect elsewhere.
— "Cracking" means splitting a group of voters between several districts so that they cannot form a majority in any of them.

The important point is that nobody necessarily has to change or falsify a single vote. The manipulation happens before the election, when the boundaries are drawn.

This is why gerrymandering is such a difficult political issue. Redrawing electoral boundaries is normal and often necessary when populations change. But deliberately drawing them to give one party an advantage is a very different matter.

We tend to think elections are about people choosing politicians. But elections are also about how those people are grouped together.

Change the boundaries, and you can change the result — without changing anyone's opinion.

Helga & Paul Smith

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SYNONYMS



biasing, boundary manipulation, constituency manipulation, electoral manipulation, election-rigging, fixing, GERRYMANDERING, manipulating, redistricting, rigging, vote dilution



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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“GERRYMANDERING changes maps — but it doesn’t change minds!”

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THANKS to Florian for suggesting today's OWAD.

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