How Accurate/Fair Is The Voting In Your District?

When thinking about voting, one can go back to the early years of school where we are taught that each member of the community puts their ballot in the box, has their vote counted, and the election results are tallied up to find the winner. In the most simplistic form, barring fraud, that is what happens.

Many members of communities all across our great country do not realize the impact of their geographical district even though most of us have heard the term "Gerrymandering". Even those that are familiar with the term may not always understand the effect of redistricting. In short, district layout can have a significant effect on the election results as it can be used to "stack the deck" for the gain of a particular party or candidate.

We are now about 200 years into the use of the term Gerrymandering. It is derived from a Massachusetts governor in the early 1800s. He happened to sign a bill that redistricted his state in a manner that benefited his party. The resulting district looked similar to a salamander.

Other than the term gerrymander, the process is often referred to as "Packing" and "Cracking". Packing is the process of getting a concentrated voter demographic into a district in order to maximize their voting effect. Cracking is the process of breaking up the voting demographic in order to suppress it's influence.

Even in our current day and age, there are still signs of this process in district maps across the nation. Some favor Democrats while some favor Republicans. In short, they all circumvent the will of the people in favor of the whim of those in power at the time of redistricting.

For this reason, we can understand how some voters are essentially being robbed of their right to be represented. While they are legally able to vote, they are put into a district where their vote will fall under the threshold of influence. This type of packing and cracking, while not childs play, is also not rocket science. When redistricting, one simply has to break the precincts down by analyzing their voting results. With this information, it can be identified on the map which precincts favor Left/Right/Democrat/Republican/Etc.

Using this information, the district can easily be redrawn in a manner that spreads the "opposition" voters out among other districts that vote favorably. This prevents the opposition from getting a majority, as their votes are divided and placed into the "favored" districts. Since they will never put more than 50% of the opposition into a district, that opposition will have it's votes negated.

This is an unfortunate attempt to replace fair voting and constitutionally guaranteed representation with corrupt politics. The people in power, when given the unchecked ability to stay in power, will find methods such as this to do so.

This is something that we need to consider the next time our area is up for redistricting. We need to make sure that we are paying attention to our elected officials so that they may act responsibly. Ultimately, we would benefit to have a politician work for the community than to have one exposed for being corrupt. While it might be an uncomfortable change for a politician to know they are being watched like a hawk, it would also help them stay on the honest path that we're so often accusing our elected officials from leaving behind once in office.