Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering is the practice of altering constituencies to influence the outcome of election results. Typically, the boundaries of a constituency are changed in order to eliminate some area with a high concentration of people who vote for a certain political party. Often, such gerrymanderingis seen as attempt to redress a long-overlooked imbalance, as when creating a black majority district.

Another method is to attempt to move the population within the existing boundaries. This occurred in Westminster?, in the United Kingdom. The local government was controlled by the Conservative party, and the leader of the council, with others conspired to only offer state funded housing to people who were thought to vote Conservative. The council leader was [Dame Shirley Porter]?, who lost in court, and was forced to pay millions of pounds in punitive damages. Recently (December 2001), an appeal court has ordered that she will remain liable for the full amount of the damages.

Gerrymandering is named after an early Massachusetts Governor, Elbridge Gerry. Two reporters were looking at the new election map and one commented that one of the new districts looked just like a salamander. The other retorted that it looked like a Gerrymander. The name stuck and is now used by political scientists everywhere.