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In Politics and Government
What is a gerrymander?
A gerrymander is an oddly shaped district design to increase thevoting strength of a particular party. The name comes fromsalamander-shaped districts drawn up the influence of… one ElbridgeGerry , a governor of Massachusetts. As a verb it means to draw upgerrymander districts. Gerrymandering tends to occur after each census which changes thenumber of Congressional districts in a state. States also need tochange their own legislative distrcts from to time to time due toshifts in population and the new districts may be gerrymandered tohelp the party in power. The idea is to study past voting recordsand create as many districts as possible with a slight but solidmajority for the controling party. It may be necessary to have some"lost" districts to which as many opposing voters as possible areplaced. ( Full Answer )