Editing Gerrymandering (section)

==Effects==

Gerrymandering is effective because of the [[wasted vote effect]]. Wasted votes are votes that did not contribute to electing a candidate, either because they were in excess of the number needed for victory or because the candidate lost. By moving geographic boundaries, the incumbent party packs opposition voters into a few districts they will already win, wasting the extra votes. Other districts are more tightly constructed, with the opposition party allowed a bare minority count, thereby wasting all the minority votes for the losing candidate. These districts constitute the majority of districts and are drawn to produce a result favoring the incumbent party.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/231865/gerrymandering|title=gerrymandering – politics|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|date=10 June 2023 }}</ref>

A quantitative measure of the effect of gerrymandering is the [[efficiency gap]], computed from the difference in the wasted votes for two different political parties summed over all the districts.<ref name="82UofCLawReview">{{Cite journal|last1=Stephanopoulos|first1=Nicholas|last2=McGhee|first2=Eric|year=2014|title=Partisan Gerrymandering and the Efficiency Gap|journal=University of Chicago Law Review|volume=82|page=831|ssrn=2457468}}</ref><ref name="NewRepublic20140702">{{Cite magazine|last=Stephanopoulos|first=Nicholas|date=2 July 2014|title=Here's How We Can End Gerrymandering Once and for All|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/118534/gerrymandering-efficiency-gap-better-way-measure-gerrymandering|magazine=The New Republic|access-date=22 November 2016}}</ref> Citing in part an efficiency gap of 11.7 to 13.0%, a U.S. District Court in 2016 ruled against the 2011 drawing of [[2018 Wisconsin State Assembly election|Wisconsin]] legislative districts. In the 2012 election for the state legislature, that gap in wasted votes meant that one party had 48.6% of the two-party votes, but won 61% of the 99 districts.<ref name="nyt20161121">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us/wisconsin-redistricting-found-to-unfairly-favor-republicans.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220102/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us/wisconsin-redistricting-found-to-unfairly-favor-republicans.html |archive-date=2 January 2022 |url-access=limited |url-status=live|title=Judges Find Wisconsin Redistricting Unfairly Favored Republicans|last=Wines|first=Michael|newspaper=New York Times|access-date=22 November 2016|date=21 November 2016}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

The wasted vote effect is strongest when a party wins by narrow margins across multiple districts, but gerrymandering narrow margins can be risky when voters are less predictable. To minimize the risk of demographic or political shifts swinging a district to the opposition, politicians can create more packed districts, leading to more comfortable margins in unpacked ones.

===Effect on electoral competition===

[[File:Gerrymandering 9-6.png|thumb|upright=1.2|How gerrymandering can influence electoral results on a [[Voting system#Majoritarian systems|non-proportional system]]. For a state with 3 equally sized districts, 15 voters and 2 parties:
{{Legend|#cacdff|text='''■'''|textcolor=#642eff|Plum – 9 voters}}
{{Legend|#cacdff|text='''⬤'''|textcolor=#ff6600|Orange – 6 voters}}
{{ordered list
| list-style-type = lower-alpha
| item_style = margin-left: -25px;|3–0 win to ''Plum''—a disproportional result considering the statewide 9:6 ''Plum'' majority.|''Orange'' wins the central ('''+''' shaped) district while ''Plum'' wins the upper and lower districts.  The 1–2 result reflects the statewide vote ratio.|Gerrymandering techniques ensure a 2–1 win to the statewide minority ''Orange'' party.
}}]]
<!-- We should mention the claim that contention over districts creates a major distraction for the legislature -->

Some political science research suggests that contrary to common belief, gerrymandering does not decrease electoral competition and can even increase it. Some say that, rather than packing the voters of their party into uncompetitive districts, party leaders tend to prefer to spread their party's voters into multiple districts so that their party can win more races.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Masket |first1=Seth E. |last2=Winburn |first2=Jonathan |last3=Wright |first3=Gerald C. |title=The Gerrymanderers Are Coming! Legislative Redistricting Won't Affect Competition or Polarization Much, No Matter Who Does It |journal=PS: Political Science & Politics |date=January 2012 |volume=45 |issue=1 |pages=39–43 |doi=10.1017/S1049096511001703 |s2cid=45832354 }}</ref> (See scenario '''(c)''' in the box.) This may lead to increased competition. Instead of gerrymandering, some researchers find that other factors, such as partisan polarization and the incumbency advantage, have driven the recent{{when?|date=January 2025}} decreases in electoral competition.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Forgette |first1=Richard |last2=Winkle |first2=John W. |title=Partisan Gerrymandering and the Voting Rights Act |journal=Social Science Quarterly |date=March 2006 |volume=87 |issue=1 |pages=155–173 |doi=10.1111/j.0038-4941.2006.00374.x }}</ref> Similarly, a 2009 study found that "congressional polarization is primarily a function of the differences in how Democrats and Republicans represent the same districts rather than a function of which districts each party represents or the distribution of constituency preferences."<ref>{{cite journal|last1=McCarty|first1=Nolan|last2=Poole|first2=Keith T.|last3=Rosenthal|first3=Howard|date=July 2009|title=Does Gerrymandering Cause Polarization?|url=http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~miaryc/PEW/Nolan_McCarty_PEWCaltech.pdf|journal=American Journal of Political Science|volume=53|issue=3|pages=666–680|citeseerx=10.1.1.491.3072|doi=10.1111/j.1540-5907.2009.00393.x|access-date=24 October 2017|archive-date=30 June 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100630200505/http://www.hss.caltech.edu/%7Emiaryc/PEW/Nolan_McCarty_PEWCaltech.pdf}}</ref>

One state in which gerrymandering has arguably had an adverse effect on electoral competition is California. In 2000, a bipartisan redistricting effort redrew congressional district lines in ways that all but guaranteed incumbent victories; as a result, California had only one congressional seat change hands between 2000 and 2010. In response to this obvious gerrymandering, a 2010 referendum in California gave the power to redraw congressional district lines to the [[California Citizens Redistricting Commission]], which had been created to draw California State Senate and Assembly districts by a 2008 referendum. In stark contrast to the redistricting efforts that followed the 2000 census, the redistricting commission has created a number of the most competitive congressional districts in the country.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/us/california-congressional-delegation-braces-for-change.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220102/https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/us/california-congressional-delegation-braces-for-change.html |archive-date=2 January 2022 |url-access=limited |url-status=live|title=New Faces Set For California in the Capitol|last=Nagourney|first=Adam|date=14 February 2012|newspaper=The New York Times}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

===Increased incumbent advantage and campaign costs===
The effect of gerrymandering for incumbents is particularly advantageous, as they are far more likely to be re-elected under conditions of gerrymandering. For example, in 2002, according to political scientists [[Norman Ornstein]] and [[Thomas E. Mann|Thomas Mann]], only four challengers were able to defeat incumbent members of the U.S. Congress, the lowest number in modern American history.<ref name="7_buck_trust.html">{{cite web|url=http://www.centrists.org/pages/2004/07/7_buck_trust.html|title=Iowa's Redistricting Process: An Example of the Right Way to Draw Legislative|date=22 July 2004|publisher=Centrists.Org|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091107114029/http://www.centrists.org/pages/2004/07/7_buck_trust.html|archive-date=7 November 2009|access-date=5 August 2009}}</ref> Incumbents are likely to be of the majority party orchestrating a gerrymander, and are usually easily renominated in subsequent elections, including incumbents among the minority.

Mann, a senior fellow of governance studies at the [[Brookings Institution]], has also noted, "Redistricting is a deeply political process, with incumbents actively seeking to minimize the risk to themselves (via bipartisan gerrymanders) or to gain additional seats for their party (via partisan gerrymanders)".<ref>Mann, Thomas E. "Redistricting Reform." The Brookings Institution. Brookings.edu, 1 June 2005. Web. 5 February 2013. <http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2005/06/01politics-mann></ref> The bipartisan gerrymandering Mann mentions refers to the fact that legislators often draw distorted legislative districts even when doing so does not give their party an advantage.

Gerrymandering of state legislative districts can effectively guarantee an incumbent's victory by "shoring up" a district with higher levels of partisan support, without disproportionately benefiting a particular political party. This can be highly problematic from a governance perspective, because forming districts to ensure high levels of partisanship often leads to higher levels of partisanship in legislative bodies. If a substantial number of districts are designed to be polarized, then those districts' representation will also likely act in a heavily partisan manner, which can create and perpetuate partisan gridlock.

Gerrymandering can thus have a deleterious effect on the principle of democratic accountability. With uncompetitive seats/districts reducing the fear that incumbent politicians may lose office, they have less incentive to represent their constituents' interests, even when those interests conform to majority support for an issue across the electorate as a whole.{{Citation needed|date=January 2014}} Incumbent politicians may look out more for their party's interests than for those of their constituents.{{Citation needed|date=January 2014}}

Gerrymandering can affect campaign costs for district elections. If districts become increasingly stretched out, candidates may incur higher costs for transportation and [[campaign advertising]] across a district.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.ced.org/reports/solving-the-problem-of-partisan-gerrymandering|title=Let the Voters Choose|date=13 March 2018|work=Committee for Economic Development|access-date=7 June 2019}}</ref> The incumbent's advantage in campaign fundraising is another benefit of having a gerrymandered seat.

===Less descriptive representation===
Gerrymandering also has significant effects on the [[representation (politics)|representation]] voters receive in gerrymandered districts. Because gerrymandering can be designed to increase the number of wasted votes among the electorate, the relative representation of particular groups can be drastically altered from their actual share of the voting population. This effect can significantly prevent a gerrymandered system from achieving proportional and [[descriptive representation]], as the winners of elections are increasingly determined by who is drawing the districts, rather than the voters' preferences.

Gerrymandering may be advocated to improve representation within the legislature among otherwise underrepresented minority groups by packing them into a single district. This can be controversial, as it may lead to those groups' remaining marginalized in the government as they become confined to a single district. Candidates outside that district no longer need to represent them to win elections.

As an example, much of the redistricting conducted in the U.S. in the early 1990s involved the intentional creation of additional "majority-minority" districts where racial minorities such as African Americans were packed into the majority. This "maximization policy" drew support from both the Republican Party (which had limited support among African Americans and could concentrate its power elsewhere) and by minority representatives elected as Democrats from these constituencies, who then had safe seats. <!-- cite a famous politician or political scientist that has a good quote of this here -->

The 2012 election provides a number of examples of how partisan gerrymandering can adversely affect the descriptive function of states' congressional delegations. In Pennsylvania, for example, Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives received 83,000 more votes than Republican candidates, yet the Republican-controlled redistricting process in 2010 resulted in Democrats losing to their Republican counterparts in 13 of Pennsylvania's 18 districts.<ref>Ting, Jan C. "Boehner and House Republicans Lack Mandate to Oppose Obama." NewsWorks. NewsWorks.Org, 14 December 2012. Web. 5 February 2013.
[https://whyy.org/articles/boehner-and-house-republicans-lack-mandate-to-oppose-obama/]
</ref>

In the seven states where Republicans had complete control over the redistricting process, Republican House candidates received 16.7 million votes and Democratic House candidates received 16.4 million. The redistricting resulted in Republican victories in 73 out of the 107 affected seats; in those seven states, Republicans received 50.4% of the votes but won in over 68% of the congressional districts.<ref>Wang, Sam. "The Great Gerrymander of 2012." The New York Times. 2 February 2013. Web. 5 February 2013.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/opinion/sunday/the-great-gerrymander-of-2012.html]
</ref> While it is but one example of how gerrymandering can have a significant effect on election outcomes, this kind of disproportional representation of the public will seems problematic for the legitimacy of democratic systems, regardless of one's political affiliation.

In [[Michigan]], redistricting was conducted by a Republican legislature in 2011.<ref name=":3">{{cite web|url=http://ballotpedia.org/Redistricting_in_Michigan|title=Redistricting in Michigan|work=ballotpedia.org}}</ref> Federal congressional districts were designed so that cities such as [[Battle Creek]], [[Grand Rapids]], [[Jackson, Michigan|Jackson]], [[Kalamazoo]], [[Lansing]], and [[East Lansing]] were separated into districts with large conservative-leaning hinterlands that diluted the Democratic votes in those cities in Congressional elections.<ref name=":3" />

===Incumbent gerrymandering===
Gerrymandering can also be done to help incumbents as a whole, effectively making every district a packed one and greatly reducing the potential for competitive elections. This is particularly likely to occur when the minority party has significant obstruction power: unable to enact a partisan gerrymander, the legislature instead agrees to ensure its own reelection.

In an unusual occurrence in 2000, for example, the two dominant parties in California [[Redistricting in California|cooperatively redrew]] both state and federal legislative districts to preserve the status quo, insulating the incumbents from unpredictable voting. This move proved completely effective, as no state or federal legislative office changed party in the [[2004 U.S. House election|2004 election]], although 53 congressional, 20 state senate, and 80 state assembly seats were potentially at risk.

In 2006, the term "70/30 district" came to signify the equitable split of two evenly split (i.e. 50/50) districts. The resulting districts gave each party a guaranteed seat and retained their respective power base.

Since the first handshake deal in 1981, whereby Republicans informally controlled the state senate redistricting process and Democrats informally controlled the state assembly redistricting process, New York has experienced some of the nation's least competitive legislative elections. One study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School found that over one 10-year period, as many members of the state legislature died in office as were defeated in elections. More than 99% of the incumbents contesting a primary or general election won their races.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Seabrook |first=Nick |date=2022 |title=One Person, One Vote: A Surprising History of Gerrymandering in America |location=New York |publisher=Pantheon Books |pages=232–233 |isbn=978-0-593-31586-6 |oclc=1286675891}}</ref>

===Prison-based gerrymandering===
Prison-based gerrymandering occurs when prisoners are counted as residents of a district, increasing its population with nonvoters when assigning political apportionment. This phenomenon violates the principle of [[one person, one vote]] because, although many prisoners come from (and return to) urban communities, they are counted as "residents" of the rural districts that contain large prisons, artificially inflating the political representation in districts with prisons at the expense of voters in districts without them.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/news/2006/05/20/NYT-gerrymandering|title=Prison-Based Gerrymandering|date=20 May 2006|newspaper=The New York Times|type=Editorial}}</ref> Others contend that prisoners should not be counted as residents of their original districts when they do not reside there and are [[disenfranchisement|not legally eligible to vote]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/NYS_A9710-D.html|title=New York Prison-Based Gerrymandering Bill – Policy|website=www.prisonersofthecensus.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/NYS_A11597.html|title=New York Prison-Based Gerrymandering Technical Amendment|website=www.prisonersofthecensus.org}}</ref>

US states Michigan, Colorado, Virginia, and Tennessee have all passed laws that restrict prison-based gerrymandering. In 2014, Massachusetts passed a resolution that asked the Census Bureau to stop counting incarcerated people as residents in the district where they are incarcerated. Pennsylvania also voted to redraw districts in a way that avoids prison-based gerrymandering.<ref>{{Cite web |last=PennLive.com |first=Spotlight PA {{!}} For |date=2021-08-24 |title=In major shift, Pa. panel votes to count incarcerated people in home districts, not state prisons |url=https://www.pennlive.com/news/2021/08/in-major-shift-pa-panel-votes-to-count-incarcerated-people-in-home-districts-not-state-prisons.html |access-date=2025-03-13 |website=pennlive |language=en}}</ref>