“…Democrats are under-represented by
about 18 seats in the House, relative to their vote share in the 2012 election.
The way Republicans pulled that off was to draw some really, really
funky-looking Congressional districts.”
Christopher Ingranham
America’s
Most Gerrymandered Congressional Districts
Gerrymandering
allows politicians to effect the outcome of the elections. The impact of Gerrymandering
is to such an extent that in the 2012 election republicans were able to win 18
more seats than democrats, even though the democrats actually earned about one
million more votes than the republicans. Political parties draw the boundaries
of congressional districts to increase the likelihood of election outcomes that
better suit the party. Considering that we live in a country where the elected
officials are there to represent us and not themselves or their party, I find
no logical explanation as to why political parties have been permitted to exercise
so much control over the outcome of elections.
While
reading this I realized that gerrymandering has very similar negative effects
of the electoral process. In both processes, the voters are left with elected
officials that do not accurately represent the population but rather the
interest of political parties. When looking at some of the shapes of the most
gerrymandered districts I feel like I’m looking through the drawings of year
old and who claims to have drawn a dog by scribbling senselessly without any
real clue as to how to draw a dog. In this case though, the politicians claimed
to have drawn congressional districts but really they just drew a bunch of weird
shaped that lead to under-representation of a million voters. As voters, we
should demand that politicians draw reasonable congressional lines to ensure
that everyone’ vote matters and that the people decide who represents them, and
not elected officials themselves.
