Gerrymandering: Difference between revisions
Add example of gerrymandering producing disproportional outcomes.
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{{wikipedia}}
'''Gerrymandering''' is the practice of splitting voters into certain districts in such a way as to maximize the chances of a certain set of candidates winning. For example, if there are 5 districts, with the population being 60% loving Vanilla ice cream, and 40% loving Chocolate ice cream, it may be possible, if all of the Vanilla voters live in the same areas, to waste Vanilla voters' votes by putting them all in two districts, and spreading the Chocolate voters out so that a majority of the remaining 3 districts are Chocolate voters, so that the majority of the winners are Chocolate-loving representatives.
Gerrymandering can lead to very disproportional outcomes. Mattingly and Vaughn found that if North Carolina were randomly districted, the 2012 election results would on average give 7.6 Democratic representatives, in contrast to the 4 Democratic representatives who were actually elected that year.<ref name="Mattingly Vaughn 2014">{{cite arXiv | last=Mattingly | first=Jonathan C. | last2=Vaughn | first2=Christy | title=Redistricting and the Will of the People | date=2014-10-29 | eprint=1410.8796 | class=physics.soc-ph}}</ref>
[[Proportional representation]] almost or completely eliminates the possibility of gerrymandering.
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