Gerrymandering Terms Trivia Quiz

Answer: Gerrymander

Gerrymandering is a common political ploy used by parties to manipulate voting districts to maximize the number of seats a party can win. Typically speaking, a successful gerrymander will award the party that drew the lines an outsized percentage of seats relative to the percentage of the votes the party earned. It is not unusual for the party that received the second most votes to earn the most seats in a governing body.

Contrary to popular belief, a gerrymandered district does not have to be oddly shaped and an oddly shaped district is not necessarily indicative of a gerrymander.

Answer: Packing

Packing is mostly common associated with race. Prior to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in the United States, African-Americans in the South were often packed into the fewest possible districts. Sometimes, a district would even be upwards of 95% African-American.

However, any group of people can be packed into a district. A district that is packed is usually a safe seat for one of the parties. If Party A packed voters of Party B into one district, Party A limits the influence of Party B because there will be few if any Party B voters in the surrounding districts.

Answer: Cracking

Medium-sized cities and counties are the most common areas that are cracked. Large cities and counties are rarely cracked because they have such big populations, they can contain multiple districts on their own and smaller towns and counties have too little populations to make cracking viable.

Cracking can work two ways. For example, if Party A is drawing the district lines and a city is dominated by voters of Party B, Party A can crack that city into multiple districts each containing a small piece of the city and surrounding areas dominated by Party A voters. This creates multiple Party A districts without providing one to Party B.

It can also work the opposite way. Party A could crack a city with lots of Party A voters to spread out its voters and nullify surrounding areas with lots of Party B voters.

Answer: Dummymander

There is a political risk for parties who gerrymander district lines. Gerrymandering typically provides fewer seats for the party that did not draw the lines; however those seats tend to be very safe for that party. Ideally for the party that drew the lines, the goal is to create as many seats as possible without putting any of those seats in electoral danger.

However, the party that gerrymandered the districts needs to have spread out its voters thinner, making those seats less safe. Sometimes, a party becomes too ambitious and spreads its voters out too thinly. Those seats become vulnerable to wave elections for the other party while simply sacrificing one seat may have saved the rest of them.

Answer: Malapportionment

Gerrymandering can cause severe malapportionment. In an evenly divided state with 12 districts, Party A could draw eight districts that favor it and just four that favor Party B. Neither Party A nor Party B would have representation equal to (or even close to) its share of the population.

Malapportionment can also mean having districts of unequal population. Such a ploy is illegal in the United States at all levels of government.

Answer: Hijacking

Hijacking is typically only seen the first election after a redistricting. A party can draw lines so that certain incumbents in districts will be forced to run against each others. There are many reasons for purposely drawing the lines in such a way.

A party may do this to its own members if it hopes to defeat a rebellious member of its caucus. Hijacking is necessary if a state were to lose a district and all representatives wanted to run for reelection. Hijacking may place two incumbents of different parties into the same district creating what are typically very expensive elections.

Answer: Kidnapping

Kidnapping is the act of removing an incumbent from his or her district in the hopes of getting that person to retire or run in an unfamiliar place. Typically when an incumbent is "kidnapped", the vast majority of their old district is placed in a new district but their hometown is in an entirely new one.

This would eliminate any incumbent advantage the politician may have earned as they will now have to familiarize themselves with many new voters.

Answer: Redistricting

Redistricting is mandatory in the United States every ten years after the census is taken. This assures that each district for U.S. House (within a state) and state and local offices have an equal population. Redistricting laws vary state by state. In some states, an independent commission draws the lines in the hopes of avoiding a gerrymander.

In other states, the state senate and state house draw the lines and must be approved by the governor. Redistricting can occur mid-decade either under court order or voluntarily.

Answer: Disenfranchisement

Disenfranchisement can be a result of gerrymandering. If groups of people are routinely denied their chosen representation, they lack the influence in the political world. Disenfranchisement was typically more common prior to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. African-Americans in the South were victims of disenfranchisement frequently.

In Alabama, U.S. House representatives were elected at-large rather than drawing individual districts. This deprived African-Americans of any representatives in the heavily black, though majority white, state. Such a tactic was later declared unconstitutional.

Answer: Contiguity

District lines in the U.S. do not have to be contiguous, although a lack of contiguity is almost certainly an indication of a gerrymander. However, even the most ambitious and brutal gerrymanders are almost always contiguous. Some districts are not contiguous on land but may be via waterways as bodies of water must belong to a district even though the population may be zero.