Gerrymandering's Effect on Elections

Gigi Kim

Gerrymandering has emerged as a hotly debated topic in the 2024 elections, igniting criticism and controversy over its influence on political outcomes. Every 10 years, each state redraws its district boundary lines, which has led to the political manipulation of voter advantage, leading to one political party having an advantage over the other. This is known as gerrymandering. This practice, deeply rooted in American political history, has again taken center stage as Americans grapple with its implications for democracy. 

Gerrymandering typically comes in two types: cracking and packing. Cracking refers to diluting the voting power of the opposition party’s supporters. On the other hand, packing refers to concentrating the opposition party’s voting power in one district to weaken their voting power in different districts. While this redistricting process was originally intended to ensure equal voting representation based on population shifts, it has been exploited for political gain and manipulation. 

The term gerrymandering dates back to 1812, when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a redistricting bill. The word was coined when the district’s shape resembled a salamander, and eventually a cartoon of a Massachusetts electoral district was headlined “The Gerry-mander.” The practice of partisan gerrymandering has long been controversial, with critics arguing that it undermines the principle rule of “one-person, one-vote” by creating districts that are not reflective of voters. Gerrymandered districts can yield disproportionate representation, with a political party securing a majority of seats despite not having secured a majority of votes. Proponents of gerrymandering defend the practice as an inherently legitimate component of the political voting process, and insist that voting groups are fairly represented in proportion to their population. 

In the recent 2024 election, public sentiment increasingly turned against gerrymandering as a means of skewing election results, further exemplifying voter disenfranchisement. The highest concentration of gerrymandering was prevalent in parts of southern and northeastern United States, including but not limited to North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Texas and Ohio. In 2022, the Democratic Party also benefited from the practice of gerrymandering by aggressively redrawing congressional district maps in the states they controlled, as a counter to the advantage the Republican Party held. 

The efforts to address gerrymandering have yielded mixed success. In the 2019 Rucho v. Common Cause case, the United States Supreme Court ultimately ruled that partisan gerrymandering claims were beyond the jurisdiction of federal courts to resolve. This decision was grounded in the “political question doctrine,” which limits the ability of the federal courts to hear constitutional questions even if justiciability requirements are met. The case involved challenges to map districts in North Carolina and Maryland, where North Carolina’s congressional district favored the Republican Party, and Maryland’s congressional districts favored the Democratic Party. 

Now, at the end of 2024, gerrymandering continues to be a contentious issue in American democracy. The ongoing battle for partisan power warrants the highest scrutiny, as fair voter representation is critical to the democratic process.