Gerry 'jerking' the elections!
They call it 'gerrymandering' but basically it's gerry 'jerking' the electoral boundaries around to give your party an advantage in an election.
Confusing? Not at all.
Let us look at a local village which has an East Zone and a West Zone. The Goo-Goo Party and the Gaa-Gaa
Party are running a representative in each. Last election in the East Zone the Goo-Goos got 80 per cent of the votes while in the West Zone the Gaa-Gaas won with 51 per cent of the vote.
Ah, but that annoys the Goo-Goos so they gradually sneak in a vote at their town meeting that changes the boundaries for the zones and — voila!
Suddenly, come election evening, the East Zone Goo-Goos get 70 per cent of the vote and with the 'jerking' around of the boundaries they now get 58 per cent of the vote in the West Zone and have won both seats!
In the Ewe Ess this is called gerrymandering!
And it has been more common than originally thought as studies show there has been some serious 'jerking' around of boundaries in many states. In New York state in 2012 the Democrats received 66 per cent of the vote and ended up with 21 out of 27 seats or three more than you'd expect from the popular vote alone.
In the Pennsylvania 2012 elections the Democrats won 51 per cent of the popular vote but won only 5 out of 18 seats — less than one third. This was because when Pennsylvania Republicans redrew the states Congressional districts, they made highly irregular districts throughout the state to ensure their victory. The partisan tilt in Pennsylvania was more than any other state except Texas according to national analysis and was called 'the worst gerrymandering in modern Pennsylvania history'. The analysis found that the drawing of districts for hundreds of US and state legislative districts gave Republicans a real advantage.
In Pennsylvania there has been a revolt against the practice and a court challenge to the practice was filed by the League of Women Voters and 18 registered Democratic Party voters. The challenge was opposed by the Republican Party and it eventually ended up at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's door and then the bombshell hit! They decided to throw out the state congressional map and give the state until February 15 to re-district the map.
