What exactly is gerrymandering and what effects does it have? And could someone give an example of gerrymandering?
This is when constituencies are designed to favor a particular party. That’s why some neighborhoods have a really weird shape.
What is that:
Gerrymandering is a form of redistricting in which constituency or constituency boundaries are deliberately altered for electoral purposes, thus producing a crooked or unusual shape. The resulting district is known as Gerrymander; however, this word can also refer to the process.
Effects:
Gerrymandering distorts constituencies because you selectively and actively omit certain people from a district who would normally vote in that district.
Example:
Shaw v. Reno was a United States Supreme Court case involving the redistricting and racial manipulation of North Carolina’s 12th congressional district.
The case concerned the redistricting of North Carolina after the 1990 census. North Carolina presented the Department of Justice with a map with a majority black district, that is, a majority black district. The Justice Department felt that the state could have designed another majority-minority district to improve representation for black voters. The state revised its map, but the new plan included a single district 260 kilometers long, winding through the state to connect several areas with only a large black population in common. Judge Sandra Day O’Connor described the shape of the new neighborhood as “odd”. The court held that if a redistricting map is “so bizarre on its face that it is ‘unexplainable on grounds other than race,'” it should be held to the strictest standard of review.
Good luck in your mission =]
It is when constituencies are deliberately separated (whether by political beliefs, race, etc.) so that a candidate gains an advantage in an election.