CHAPTER NiNE • THE CoNgREss 207
unfairly, because it could not be proved that a group of voters would consistently be
deprived of influence at the polls as a result of the new districts.How gerrymandering Works. Congressional and state legislative redistricting deci-
sions are often made by a small group of political leaders within a state legislature. Typically,
their goal is to shape voting districts in such a way as to maximize their party’s chances of
winning state legislative seats, as well as seats in Congress. Two of the techniques in use
are called packing and cracking. By employing powerful computers and software, voters
supporting the opposing party are “packed” into as few districts as possible or the oppos-
ing party’s supporters are “cracked” into different districts.
Figure 9–2 on the following page illustrates the redistricting process. In these three
examples, sixty-four individuals must be distributed among four districts, each of which
has a population of sixteen. Two political parties are involved: the O Party and the X Party.
In Example 1, supporters of the two parties are sorted so that each district contains
only one kind of voter. Such a pattern sometimes appears when the members of a state
legislature are most interested in preserving the seats of incumbents, regardless of party.
In this example, it would be almost impossible to dislodge a sitting member in a general
election. Example 2 is the reverse case. Every district is divided evenly between the parties,
and even a very slight swing toward one of the parties could give that party all four seats.
Example 3 is a classic partisan gerrymander benefiting the X Party. The district in the
lower right is an example of packing—the maximum possible number of supporters of
the O Party are packed into that district. The other three districts are examples of cracking. The
O Party supporters are cracked so that they do not have a majority in any of the three districts.
In these districts, the X Party has majorities of eleven to five, ten to six, and eleven to five.Source: Boston Centinel, 1812.FiguRE 9–1: The original gerrymander
The practice of gerrymandering—manipulating
the shape of a legislative district to benefit a
certain incumbent or party—is probably as
old as the republic, but the name originated
in 1812. In that year, the Massachusetts
legislature carved out a misshapen district
in Essex County. The resulting cartoon likening
the district to a mythical salamander was
probably drawn by Elkanah Tisdale, a Boston
painter and engraver. Editor Nathan Hale is
widely credited with naming the creature a
“gerrymander” (after Elbridge Gerry, then
governor of Massachusetts).Copyright 2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.