Gerrymandering. The word was coined after the redrawing of election districts by Governor Gerry in Massachusetts in 1812. He signed a bill that benefited his party. One of the contorted districts in the Boston area was said to resemble the shape of a salamander. How does this notorious political practice work? Two of the most common gerrymandering techniques are called packing and cracking. In the former, the party in charge of redistricting tries to pack voters from the rival party into as few districts as possible, to minimize the number of seats the opposition is likely to win. In the second, blocs of opposition voters are meted out among several districts, to achieve the same goal. Gerrymandering occurs in countries where elected politicians are responsible for defining constituency boundaries and by doing so tilt elections. To prevent gerrymandering some primitive countries, such as Canada and Australia authorize non-partisan organizations to determine how districts are configured.
In his new book, David Daley, the editor in chief of Salon, describes what the Republican strategist Ben Ginsberg has called “Project Rat_____ ”: the strategy of shadowy (but thus far legal) packing, splicing and dicing of congressional districts to secure Republican domination and, in turn, subvert the will of the American voter.
In its more modest form of gerrymandering, the practice has been in play for decades and used by both parties alike. But Daley proposes that this particular strain of manipulation is unprecedented in its sophistication, its permanence and its virulence. Of the myriad theories about why, precisely, American democracy seems so broken — increasing socio-economic divides, media bifurcation, voter suppression efforts — Daley points to this Republican-led district distortion as the truly original sin, and the one from which our democracy is unlikely to recover anytime soon.