As defined, partisan gerrymandering refers to the practice of drawing political districts in a way that gives one party a significant advantage over another in an election. These district boundaries are redrawn every ten years following the federal consensus, usually by the party in power (Mark & Gould, 2017). This indicates that political parties are in control of gerrymandering, signifying that both Democrats and Republicans benefit from this practice. By skillfully redrawing electoral districts, political parties can disenfranchise their opposition, ensuring that their votes do not count. The constitutionality of this practice is often called into question. While the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering may be debatable, there is no constitutionally discernible basis for deciding whether a district is an illegal partisan gerrymander (Beckett 2011). Partisan gerrymandering dilutes the voice of minority populations in districts where fair and constitutional methods could have been applied in nonpartisan rather than politically manipulated means.

The word gerrymander was used for the first time in the Boston Gazette in the year 1812. The word was created in reaction to a redrawing of Massachusetts state Senate election districts under Governor Elbridge Gerry, whom this practice was named after. In 1812, Governor Gerry signed a bill that redistricted Massachusetts to benefit his Democratic-Republican Party. When mapped, one of the contorted districts in the Boston area was said to resemble the shape of a salamander, and hence gerrymander is a portmanteau of the governor’s last name and the word salamander. This is a stark contrast to proportional-election systems. In proportional-election systems, political parties are represented in proportion to the total numbers of votes they receive. This system is used in countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada. Concerning the utilization of such systems, gerrymandering has little to no significance regarding the effects of the manipulation of voters and district shapes.

The implementation of partisan gerrymandering dilutes the voice of minority populations within a district. The political parties in charge of the redistricting process divide districts within a state to ensure that they have a political advantage over an opposing political party. As the purpose of partisan gerrymandering is to benefit these political parties in charge, gerrymandering is used to, “to minimize, cancel out, or dilute the voting strength of minority populations” (Seltzer, 2017). Minority populations, such as a Democratic minority in a Republican majority district or vice versa, would then be unable to be accurately and fairly represented in their own districts. Political parties in charge of gerrymandering are most notable for taking advantage of “the wasted vote effect. By moving geographic boundaries, the incumbent party packs opposition voters into a few districts they will already win, wasting those extra votes” (Kolaneci, 2015). The votes of these minority populations are wasted against those of the majority populations, denying these populations equal representation. As these populations are unfairly represented in their district, minority populations would then be less likely to successfully push for policies or agendas in their favor.
The process of gerrymandering is done by using various methods to divide districts that would favor the political party in charge. The methods include packing, cracking, kidnapping and hijacking. Perhaps the most utilized method, packing concerns crowding voters into only a handful of districts. Typically, the party in charge crowds the voters of the opposing party into a single district. In doing this, the voters of the opposing political party win by a much larger margin than they need to win that one district (Klarreich, 2017). By placing these members of the opposing political party in a handful of districts in high numbers, they increase the voters of their own party elsewhere and reduce the influence of the opposing party. (Kolaneci, 2015) To most accurately sum up this method, packing concentrates members of a group in a single district, thereby allowing their own party to win the remainder of the districts.

In addition to this, there are various different forms of gerrymandering that seek to skew an election towards a certain political party or another. A less controversial form of gerrymandering includes sweetheart gerrymandering. Using this type of gerrymandering, the people in charge of drawing the district lines tacitly agree to draw district lines to ensure that incumbents of both parties win reelection (Holden, 2007). On the contrary, racial gerrymandering is highly controversial and considered unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Racial gerrymandering refers to the intentional, not the accidental, segregation of voters on the basis of race. This method of gerrymandering districts is the deliberate and arbitrary distortion of district boundaries for racial purposes (Mark, 2017). The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment protects against this type of gerrymandering. Partisan gerrymandering is a form of gerrymandering which aids either one political party or another. This type of gerrymandering occurs when the party in control of the redistricting process draws the district lines to maximize the power of their own party (Holden, 2007).

Cracking is another popular method to maximize the effect of the votes of the supporting party and to minimize the effect of the votes of that of the opposing party. The main idea behind cracking districts is to dilute the voice of populations which the party is charge does not want to be represented. In cracking, the remaining supporters of the opposing political party or party representative are spread across many districts, where they won’t gather the amount of votes needed to win. Cracking essentially splits this bloc among multiple districts, so as to dilute their impact and to prevent them from constituting a majority (Redistricting the Nation, 2009). This process is generally used in combination with packing, as it maximizes the chance of a political party to gain the majority votes across multiple districts.

Hijacking and kidnapping are methods of gerrymandering that do not concern with the manipulation of voters across districts, but rather the placement of the incumbents that represent them. Hijacking is a method of gerrymandering that aims to redraw districts in a way that force two incumbents to be in the same district together. These two incumbents are usually of the same opposing political party. By placing this incumbent in another district, they will have another incumbent to contend with (Pierce, 2011). In doing so, one of the incumbents would have to lose their position as incumbent, which would then allow for the party in charge of the hijacking to fill in the empty position. Kidnapping aims to move areas where a certain elected official has significant support to another district. This method of gerrymandering separates an incumbent candidate from his constituents and places him or her in a district where he or she has no name recognition. (Idle 2014) In using this method, those who draw district lines, “cut off popular support from an incumbent, transferring these votes to the new district and in so doing, make it difficult for an incumbent to win future elections with the new electorate” (Kiprop, 2017). As the incumbent loses their support from previous voters in their last district, an opposing political party can alienate them, causing them to lose re-election. The purpose of these methods of gerrymandering is to maximize the effect of supporters’ votes and to minimize the effect of opponents’ votes.

As partisan gerrymandering favors a single political party over another, there is not an accurate representation of the voting-eligible population for states who excessively gerrymander their districts. Due to the lack of accurate representation, “politically driven redistricting weakens the quality of representative government” (Olson, 2016). This is because the voters then have little choice of whom their representative will be if their votes become wasted due to the political makeup in their district as a result of gerrymandering. And so instead of a system in which voters pick public officials, the implementation of partisan gerrymandering allows public officials to pick their voters, thus weakening the quality of a representative government.

Gerrymandering serves as a possible cause of both party polarization and electoral bias in the United States. This is due to the fact that partisan gerrymandering concerns winning safe seats in order to maximize their chances of continuing to be the party in charge within a state. It is reported that, “by stuffing minority-party voters into a small number of districts, gerrymanders help polarize politics” (Olson, 2016). While controversial, this claim is made on the basis that as states are accurately represented, the legislature would then also not accurately represent the population of their state, resulting in a more polarized legislature than there should be. The adverse effects of partisan gerrymandering is made apparent. However it is also important to note that,” [w]hen a district is meant to corral members of one party the only meaningful competition will come in the primary, and the chief political pressure on incumbents may be to avoid coming across as too moderate for fear of attracting a primary challenge” (Pierce, 2011). This clearly shows that politicians actively seek to polarize politics in order to gain more safe seats for their political party as to continue to maintain control of the states they present.

The effect of gerrymandering on legislature is still heavily debated, with some claiming that gerrymandering itself has no apparent impact on gains in the legislative branch of the government. These legislative gains include the increased incumbency rate of those in the legislative branch. These legislative gains are instead attributed to natural political changes and even the typical spread of the population. On the contrary, gerrymandering is thought to have caused an increase in the reelection rate from incumbents in legislature, but this claim has been difficult to prove using computer simulations. Many studies have found this has much predictive power on electoral outcomes, and even that movements in this variable over time have contributed towards the increase in the reelection rate, such as John N. Friedman in his study of the impact of gerrymandering on legislative gains (Friedman, 1999). Friedman then goes on to refute this claim using computer simulations. His findings are shocking, to both the general consensus and himself. He concludes in his paper that gerrymandering does not play a major role in the increased incumbent reelection rate, but rather makes it less likely for an incumbent to be reelected (Friedman, 1999). The results of the impact of gerrymandering on legislative gains are inconclusive due to the variety of claims regarding its impact. Overall, more research needs to be done to make a concrete claim regarding the effect of gerrymandering on legislation.

A major concern regarding the practice of gerrymandering is its constitutionality. The implementation of either partisan or racially motivated gerrymandering has the potential to be unconstitutional. Clauses in the constitution may help to prove that the practice of gerrymandering is illegal or unconstitutional. More specifically, the Due Process clause in the fifth amendment and the clauses in the 14th amendment give rise for a legitimate argument against the practice of gerrymandering. In an article by Goldman, he states that parties, “who challenge partisan gerrymandering couch their arguments in terms of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the 14th Amendment. Some commentators also have suggested that partisan gerrymandering violates the First Amendment ” (Goldman 2017). In addition to this, Article 1, Clause 2, Section 3 of the Constitution states that a consensus must be taken every ten years to ensure that the representation in Congress is proportional to that of the population. (Bajwa, 2018) Partisan gerrymandering does not ensure proportional representation of the population with members of Congress, as the voices of members of certain political parties are diluted within their own states. Instead of drawing district lines every consensus to ensure that the population is proportionally represented in Congress; it is instead used to help political parties stay in power. These clauses from the Constitution would then help provide constitutional proof that partisan gerrymandering violates people’s rights to equal representation in their districts and with their representatives.

The case against gerrymandering in the state of Wisconsin may help determine the future of the constitutionality of gerrymandering. In 2011, the state of Wisconsin, which is presently controlled by Republicans, redrew its district map in a way that heavily favored the GOP that was in charge. Their use of partisan gerrymandering was challenged by Democrats on the basis of being unconstitutional. The District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin struck down the Republicans’ new map. Wisconsin Republicans took the case, “all the way to the US Supreme Court in 2015, and is asking the Court to overturn the decision made by the District Court” (Kennedy, 2017). This case provides, “ an opportunity to formally determine a metric on what constitutes unlawful gerrymandering, which could have major implications for the way voting districts are drawn in other states” (Kennedy, 2017). In an interview with Chris Aiden, it was mentioned that this case, “would essentially determine the use of gerrymandering and the uses of gerrymandering throughout the United States and... would essentially solve disputes and controversies nationality in regards to both gerrymandered districts and its application” (Aiden).

The results of this case would help determine the future of partisan gerrymandering, and possibly even set a standard for the practice of gerrymandering as to increase and tighten regulations on its practice.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to gauge whether or not a district has been unconstitutionally gerrymandered by a political party as methods of determining whether or not a district is gerrymandered in a manner that is politically or racially motivated have been set to a very high standard, or rather extremely vague standards. Any pre-existing criterion for determining if a gerrymandered district was unconstitutionally done so is undetermined and is far too ambiguous for courts to come to a clear consensus of what exactly constitutes as an illegally gerrymandered district. Gerrymandered districts are typically not called out for the shape of their districts are there exists, “ “no majority for any single criterion of impermissible gerrymander” (Grofman 2007). Partisan symmetry is typically considered to be the main standard of determining if a district has been illegally or overly gerrymandered. Using symmetry is especially useful as, “ Essentially, symmetry requires that a specific share of the popular vote would translate into the same number of congressional seats, regardless of which party won that share of the vote” (McGann, 2017). Because of this, a lack of partisan symmetry is a surefire sign of partisan gerrymandering as it cannot be easily hidden. However, concrete standards for determining whether or not a district has been unconstitutionally gerrymandered do not exist, and in order to prevent future occurrences of illegal gerrymandering a concrete standard for determining this must be set by the courts.

There are various methods of determining the unconstitutionality of a district, many of which are not set as the standard for determining unconstitutional gerrymandering by the courts. Some states require that their districts be compact and contiguous, meaning that they have more or less regular shapes and that all parts of the district are geographically connected. This is not, however, explicitly embodied in federal law (Entin, 2017). In order to rectify this, the courts need to determine possible general criterion for identifying gerrymandered districts, such as compactness. By determining what possible criterion could be used to determine which districts are gerrymandered unconstitutionality, the courts would be able to use that standard to identify gerrymandered districts more easily and readily to states.

In order to rectify the unfair advantage of a single political party by the process of gerrymandering, nonpartisan methods should be applied to draw fair and constitutional district boundaries. The implementation of gerrymandering and drawing district lines is done so by the political party in charge of that state. As that party is in control of drawing these district lines, it is unlikely that they will lose their position as the political party of that specific state as they have the ability manipulate district lines to favor their party over the opposing. The courts and state representatives would then have to be convinced in order to introduce legislation to set restrictions on the use of gerrymandering. In order to obtain equal representation in their state, voters must convince their representatives. In his article, Jay Miller argues that gerrymandering is the clause for political polarization. In order to push for reforms on gerrymandering he states:

“The only solution is for voters to demand a change. Lobbying legislators on the subject, of course, represents one method of doing so. Holding an advisory referendum, however, could prove to be a more effective alternative. If a substantial majority voted in favor of wresting control of the redistricting process from elected officials, it would be hard for them to ignore (Miller 2016).

Miller presents an argument that, in large numbers, voters can influence legislation. In order for this to happen, voters need to be knowledgeable on the subject. By being knowledgeable on the subject of gerrymandering, voters could push their representatives for reforms to be placed on the practice of gerrymandering. If they demanded a change, these voters could push their district or state representatives for equal representation.

As previously mentioned, concrete and measurable standards on gerrymandering need to be applied to districts in order to avoid being unconstitutional. Nonpartisan methods should be applied to draw fair and constitutional district boundaries. Some states require that their districts be compact and contiguous, meaning that they have more or less regular shapes and that all parts of the district are geographically connected (Entin, 2017). Contingency refers to a district in which its shape is both single and unbroken. And more often than not, though, compactness is ill-defined by the "I know it when I see it" standard. Geographers, mathematicians and political scientists have devised countless measures of compactness, each representing a different conception (Redistricting the Nation). A partisan symmetry test would explore whether one party has to get more votes than the other party in order to win the same number of seats (Goldman 2017). Partisan symmetry demands that every voter receives the same strength of representation, regardless of which party they vote for, requiring that each party have an equal opportunity to convert its votes into seats. (McGann 2017) The symmetry test would make sure that minority populations and opposing political parties are equally and fairly represented by both their states and their representatives.

The influence of politicians and political parties on the process of drawing districts evidently grants them with unfair partisan gains during elections. The practice of partisan gerrymandering diminishes the voice of the populations in opposition to that of the political party in power. This provides an inaccurate indication of the ideology, otherwise known as the political viewpoint, of the general population within a district or a state. In extreme cases of excessive gerrymandering, this practice is at risk of being labeled as unconstitutional. However, there no constitutionally discernable basis for deciding whether the gerrymandering implemented in a district in unconstitutional. The removal of political parties and politicians from the process of gerrymandering is a possible solution to counteract the unfair partisan gains that result from incorporating political parties into this procedure. This system should be replaced by nonpartisan methods, excluding the political parties. By implementing nonpartisan means, districts can be drawn in a fair and constitutional manner.

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