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  • In April 2015, House Democrats proposed a bill to end the practice ofGerrymandering”.

  • Before we explain what that is, imagine an election where one party gets the most votes,

  • but because of the way the votes are grouped, the other party wins the election. Doesn’t

  • really seems like democracy, right? Well, this sort ofvote groupingoccurs in

  • nearly every state. And it helps incumbent parties maintain their power in the legislature,

  • even in cases when the majority of people don’t want them there. So, what exactly

  • is Gerrymandering, and how does it work?

  • Well, every state has a certain number of congressional districts, depending on the

  • state’s population. Every two years, voters in those districts elect a single Representative

  • to Congress. Every ten years the boundaries of these districts may be redrawn to represent

  • the changing population.

  • Gerrymandering is the practice of redrawing congressional districts in order to group

  • all of an opposing party’s voters into a few large districts, while grouping all the

  • controlling party’s voters into many smaller districts. Since each district gets a single

  • representative, regardless of size, you end up with drastically unequal representation

  • in Congress.

  • You can see Gerrymandering in practice by looking at North Carolina’s 2012 House elections.

  • The results showed about 50% voting Democrat, and 48% voting Republican. However, only four

  • democrats were elected, compared to 9 Republicans. It is probably unsurprising that North Carolina

  • alone holds three of the most gerrymandered districts in the country.

  • But how can this practice be legal? Well, in 1986, the Supreme Court ruled that the

  • practice could potentially violate the 14th Amendment on Equal Protection. However they

  • could not agree on a standard for what actually constituted Gerrymandering, or figure out

  • an alternative solution. In 2004, the Supreme Court revisited the issue, this time saying

  • that the problem was unsolvable. Since the court could not rule one way or the other,

  • it could not be ruled unconstitutional and is therefore still technically legal.

  • Gerrymandering has long been understood to stand in the way of true democracy, while

  • helping partisan politicians consolidate power. Currently the Supreme Court is examining the

  • issue of constitutionality of using independent groups to draw district lines, instead of

  • biased legislators. Some have pointed to the Republican congressional victory in 2014 as

  • a direct result of Gerrymandering.  States like Pennsylvania voted nearly half Democrat,

  • but only got about a quarter of the available seats. One of the anti-Gerrymandering bill’s

  • sponsors put it best: instead of voters choosing their representatives, representatives end

  • up choosing their voters.

  • Political parties in America are also preventing people from voting with a number of other

  • somewhat scary tactics... To learn more about this serious issue, take a look at our video

  • here. Thanks for watching TestTube! Please subscribe now so you don’t miss a single video!

In April 2015, House Democrats proposed a bill to end the practice ofGerrymandering”.

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什麼是Gerrymandering? (What Is Gerrymandering?)

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    周杰 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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