What is redistricting?

Question

What is redistricting of districts and precints? Why do we have this? How does it work?

Answer 1

Every decade a census of the countries population is taken. The increase or decrease of people living in a state may give them a different number of representatives both at the federal level and within their state government. Or, population inside the state may have shifted - so the state may at that time redraw the districts to more evenly allocate representatives.

However - it is possible to redraw districts in such a way as to gain an unfair advantage for a particular party: For instance, if you have a population of 12 people, half of party A and half of party B, and four districts, you could draw your districts like this:
1A-2B 2A-1B 1A-2B 2A-1B and each would win 2 districts,
or your could do this:
3A 1A-2B 1A-2B 1A-2B - in which case B wins 3 districts .
This is called gerrymandering - and so when a state government has a large majority they may seek to redistrict in order to give themselves a better chance of winning more seats. In some cases, this is done when it is not a census year and is very controversial.

Answer 2

Many politics. it relies upon upon which state you'd be in. some states have taken the politics out of redistricting: Iowa, Washington, Arizona are in elementary terms some i'm able to evaluate of. form of tough to respond this form of vague question. and that i totally disagree with this different fellow who talks as though Republicans are the single ones who ever gerrymander. Take a seem at what the Democrats of Maryland did final time.

Answer 3

When the 10 year census numbers are released, all legislative districts in the country must be re-drawn to make sure they are equal in population. The idea behind this is, "one man, one vote".

The incumbent or majority party in each state usually has the authority to draw the district lines. They take advantage of this opportunity and they "gerrymander" or draw extremely jagged district lines so that they can win and retain as many seats as possible.

It's a much more sophisticated process than merely putting as many of one party's voters in a districts as possible; it also involves packing the opposing party's voters into as few districts as possible and splitting the opponent's natural base into different districts in order to dilute their voting power. The basic effect is to cement one party's control, and to keep incumbents in office, election after election. In other words, redistricting, a process which was intended to ensure democracy, has been subverted to ensure one-party control and the retention of incumbents.

Answer 4

Fixing it so the party in control has a better chance of staying in control. (i'd go into details but im not well versed on this.)

Answer 5

It makes it possible for the Candidate with the most votes won't win .