Civics, not spin
Gerrymandering, explained in five minutes.
If a politician gets to pick the voters who will judge them, that isn’t democracy — that’s a job interview where the candidate writes the questions and grades the answers.
What is gerrymandering?
Gerrymandering is when the people in power redraw legislative district lines to lock in their own party’s wins. The word goes back to 1812 and Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, whose party drew a district so twisted it looked like a salamander — a “Gerry-mander.”
Two centuries later, computers do it better than a salamander ever could.
The two cheats: cracking and packing
Cracking
Take a community that votes the “wrong” way and split it across many districts so it’s a minority everywhere. Your neighbors’ votes are diluted into nothing.
Packing
Take another community and stuff it into a single district that wins 90–10. They get one seat. The other party gets every other seat with much smaller margins. The math is rigged.
The 50-voter example
Here’s the easiest demonstration in American civics. Imagine a state with 50 voters: 30 Blue, 20 Red. We’ll split it into 5 districts of 10 voters each.
Fair map
Blue wins 3, Red wins 2 — matches the 60/40 split.
Gerrymandered map (Red “wins”)
Red wins 3, Blue wins 2 — despite getting fewer votes statewide.
Same voters. Same votes. Different lines. Different winner. That is gerrymandering.
This isn’t hypothetical
- In Wisconsin (2018), Democrats won roughly 53% of the statewide State Assembly vote and were awarded only 36 of 99 seats. [2]
- In North Carolina (2018), Republicans won about half of the statewide U.S. House vote and were awarded 10 of 13 seats. [3]
- The Brennan Center for Justice has documented that extreme partisan gerrymandering can swing more than a dozen House seats per cycle — potentially enough to flip control of Congress. [4]
Why this is un-American
The Declaration of Independence says governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Gerrymandering manufactures fake consent. It’s the modern equivalent of a stuffed ballot box — the only difference is the cheating happens before you ever get to the polls.
If you call yourself a patriot, you can’t defend that. Full stop.
What do we do about it?
The fix at the state level is independent redistricting commissions — citizens, not incumbents, drawing the maps. States like California, Michigan, Arizona, and Colorado already do this.
The fix at the presidential level is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, because gerrymandering also distorts the Electoral College through swing-state strategy. Keep reading →