OTD: The Term “Gerrymander” Coined

ON THIS DAY – March 26

214 years ago today, the Boston-Gazette identified the problem of ruling governments drawing oddly shaped electoral districts designed to help incumbents win reelection and coined it as “gerrymandering,” named after Elbridge Gerry.

The practice is simple: drawing your districts to help one party specifically. The district can be all sorts of shapes and sizes; the point is to give your party as much of an advantage as possible.

It is wholly undemocratic and, worse over, it is a self-perpetuating system that continues to benefit the major parties.

The same way the major parties will write election laws and signature requirements that are designed to ensure the ruling powers stay the ruling powers, gerrymandering is another tool used to accomplish this feat.

To better illustrate, here is the actual political drawing where “gerry-mander” (as it was spelled originally) was coined:

And here are some modern day examples:

Gerrymandering is a problem of our time that will not be solved so long as the Old Powers are still in power. The rules have been written to benefit them, and this is one of the more blatant examples and cases.

We need new parties, new faces, new ideas to rule. The constant flipflopping battle between Red and Blue has to be tiring out even the most red-blooded patriot.

Election laws will remain unfair unless we challenge their practices. Gerrymandering will persist until we challenge their practices. They will ignore us, even when we challenge their practices.

Do not let them win via indifference.

Until we end gerrymandering. Until we fix our election laws to make them fair. Until the duopoly is over.

Until then, our work is never over.

You know what would help fight this? Uncapping the house.