The political landscape of the United States has always been shaky since the start of the American Experiment. Important issues and rights are still being discussed today, due to our democratic system being imperfect and flawed. These issues range from LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, disability rights, and so many more! However, voter rights have become an increasingly larger concern over the last decade.

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In the past few political cycles, the idea of free and fair elections has come into question because of increased knowledge of the redistricting process. Originally, the redistricting process was meant to shift district boundaries to preserve an even dispersion of the population. The reason for this practice is to ensure that representatives serve roughly the same amount of people in each district. This procedure, which typically occurs once every decade, allows the courts to ensure fairness in both state and federal elections.

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The process of redistricting was effective and clean until sitting Governor Eldrige Gerry of Massachusetts changed history. Upon hearing that he was going to lose an upcoming election, he signed a bill that would redraw his state lines. By redrawing the state borders, he was able to allow his party to retain control over the redrawn district for many election cycles to come. The act of redrawing state borders for election-altering purposes was later dubbed “gerrymandering.” The term comes from the fact that Governor Gerry’s map looked like a distorted salamander, which stuck around due to being a subject of scrutiny by political cartoonists at The Boston Gazette.

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Two hundred and fifty years later, despite the fact that the “Gerrymander of 1812” no longer exists, gerrymandering remains a problem to this day. The reason for this is due to the lack of shutting down this undemocratic action, which has allowed members of both national and state congressional bodies to utilize gerrymandering as a tool to keep power. There are two ways that Gerrymandering can be enacted: through packing aligning voters together into one district to strengthen the presence of a party in an area, or splitting a previously strong opposition apart into other districts to weaken their electoral impact in elections. These packing and splitting tactics undermine the idea of democracy and are used to manipulate both urban and rural environments to change the electoral impact of an election, which has lasting, long-term consequences for the state in question and the federal government.

 

Of the two parties in our current political system, neither are innocent of partisan gerrymandering. Illinois is known nationwide for being one of the worst gerrymandered states in the nation. Illinois’ thirteenth district serves as a modern example of gerrymandering. The district is drawn as a line that connects the urban areas of Champaign/Urbana, Springfield, and East St. Louis into one district, forging a democratic stronghold in the bottom half of the state. Having drawn this line, Illinois has now made voting meaningless for the conservatives in those districts. The formation of the democratic supermajority aids in swaying Illinois blue during election season.

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Across the aisle, a symbolic gesture of gerrymandering committed by the Republican Party is the splitting of Salt Lake City, Utah. The city, which serves as the state’s capital and has a large population of democratic voters, was split evenly into the state’s four districts. This action eliminated all representation of the city by removing their blue seat by splitting their state into four districts. Having successfully removed the democratic seat, every democratic voter in Utah will no longer receive representation in their state.

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Although gerrymandered borders like Illinois’ 13th district have a tendency to appear strange, looks may be deceiving. Near Chicago, Illinois’ fourth district consists of two communities that are in two different parts of the city which are only connected by a single highway. The reason it was drawn in such a strange way was to combine two Latino populations into a district. This is due to the fact that state representatives are tasked to serve their communities. Thus, the largely black community can choose their representative and the Latino community can elect their own representative as well. This action was not an act of gerrymandering because both areas would vote blue regardless.

Over time, the process of gerrymandering has become a deep concern for both democrats and republicans alike. The consequence is that different states, such as Illinois and Utah, have quietly redrawn their districts with only the locals noticing the immediate effects of the redistricting efforts. The silence was broken when Donald Trump instructed Governor Greg Abbott of Texas to redraw Texan borders before the midterm elections. Abbott proceeded with instructing members of the Texas state congress to attend a “special session” to redraw the map due to “constitutional concerns raised by D.O.J.” regarding the district maps used since 2021. In protest of the bill, Texas Democrats fled to Illinois to delay the “special session” for three weeks until they would face greater punishment if they didn’t return. They returned stating that they could wage a battle for fairer redistricting measures in the courts. On August 29th, the bill to reshape Texas was passed, insuring that five seats will go red in future elections.

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On the west coast, Governor Gavin Newsom of California has declared that the Democratic Party must “fight fire with fire” and said the following in a letter sent to the president on August 10th: “If you will not stand down, I will be forced to lead an effort to redraw the maps in California to offset the rigging of maps in red states.” This letter was accompanied with a twenty-four hour deadline that stated retaliatory efforts would commence if Trump and Abbott refused to stand down. Consequentially, an announcement was made the next day due to the President’s inaction and a bill was passed in California on August 21 that allows the voters in California to decide whether or not to accept a gerrymandered map of the state. Governor Newsom ensures that his redistricting plan is not unconstitutional because it will be commenced by the will of the voters.

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The United States now stands in a tumultuous time where the foundation of the democratic process is being shaken by the threat of Gerrymandering. The very concept of intentionally redrawing maps to change the election turnout is a woeful, violatory act against the founding principles of having a democracy where everyone has their own voice, due to the fact that gerrymandering always results in silencing a population of voters. At the same time, it has become a necessary countermeasure to combat executive pressure to interfere in federal elections in ways that only benefits the incumbent. While partisans across the country may hold differing opinions on who to support in the redistricting fight, most American voters in ideal circumstances would condemn gerrymandering and urge the government to work toward illegalizing the practice in favor of a fairer system that protects voter rights.