What Is Gerrymandering? The Origins of a Controversial Practice Gerrymandering refers to the deliberate manipulation of electoral district boundaries to give a political party, incumbent, or group an unfair advantage in elections. This practice occurs during redistricting, the process of redrawing congressional and state legislative districts, typically every ten years after the U.S. Census to reflect population changes and ensure roughly equal population sizes per district as required by the “one person, one vote” principle established in Supreme Court cases like Baker v. Carr (1962), Gray v. Sanders (1963), and Wesberry v. Sanders (1964). The term gerrymandering itself has a…
