Let’s imagine a society called Pond.
Pond has 1000 citizens: 500 Frogs and 500 Turtles. This society has a parliament of 10 representatives to make legislative decisions. This parliament uses geographical areas to elect its representatives. Pond is divided into 10, similar-sized, pie shapes. Each pie has about a 50/50 Frog/Turtle split.
In the last election, the voting went like this:
District 1: 52 Frogs and 48 Turtles
District 2: 45 Frogs and 55 Turtles
District 3: 49 Frogs and 51 Turtles
District 4: 53 Frogs and 47 Turtles
District 5: 51 Frogs and 49 Turtles
District 6: 52 Frogs and 48 Turtles
District 7: 47 Frogs and 53 Turtles
District 8: 48 Frogs and 52 Turtles
District 9: 51 Frogs and 49 Turtles
District 10: 51 Frogs and 49 Turtles
Total: 500 Frogs and 500 Turtles
Frogs won six of the 10 seats. Turtles won four of 10. We can see that all 10 districts were close races.
The Frogs have the parliamentary majority. They kind of like being able to make all decisions on behalf of both Frogs and Turtles. They would like to make the next Pond election more secure for their political future.
They use their majority position to redraw the district boundaries to give them a little advantage in the next election. They take advantage of the fact that the Turtles have a slight preference for living on the edge of Pond. The outer circumference becomes one electoral district. The inner section is now divided into nine pie slices:
Here are the projected results for the next election:
District 1: 52 Frogs and 48 Turtles
District 2: 52 Frogs and 48 Turtles
District 3: 52 Frogs and 48 Turtles
District 4: 52 Frogs and 48 Turtles
District 5: 52 Frogs and 48 Turtles
District 6: 52 Frogs and 48 Turtles
District 7: 52 Frogs and 48 Turtles
District 8: 52 Frogs and 48 Turtles
District 9: 52 Frogs and 48 Turtles
District 10: 32 Frogs and 68 Turtles
Total: 500 Frogs and 500 Turtles
In Districts 1 to 9, the Frogs have given themselves a four-point lead. This margin ensures that if a Frog or two forgets to vote, the Frog candidate would still win. Frogs will take 9 of the 10 seats, forming a substantial majority in the Pond Parliament. District 10 will be overwhelmingly supporting the Turtles.
The population is still split 50/50. But the new parliament will be split 90/10. The Frogs have used legal means to allow them to dominate the outcome of the next election. If winning elections is the goal of democracy, why should we fault the Frogs for their gerrymandering efforts?
Not quite 50/50
The new electoral districts were based on the results of the previous election. In other words, only the voters were considered. But for every Pond citizen who casts a vote, there is another citizen who, rightly or wrongly, does not feel the urge to cast a vote. If we count ALL the Pond citizens, the new gerrymandered districts would look like this:
District 1: 52 voting Frogs, 48 voting Turtles, 45 non-voting Frogs, 45 non-voting Turtles, 10 Ducks.
District 2: 52 voting Frogs, 48 voting Turtles, 45 non-voting Frogs, 45 non-voting Turtles, 10 Ducks.
District 3: 52 voting Frogs, 48 voting Turtles, 45 non-voting Frogs, 45 non-voting Turtles, 10 Ducks.
District 4: 52 voting Frogs, 48 voting Turtles, 45 non-voting Frogs, 45 non-voting Turtles, 10 Ducks.
District 5: 52 voting Frogs, 48 voting Turtles, 45 non-voting Frogs, 45 non-voting Turtles, 10 Ducks.
District 6: 52 voting Frogs, 48 voting Turtles, 45 non-voting Frogs, 45 non-voting Turtles, 10 Ducks.
District 7: 52 voting Frogs, 48 voting Turtles, 45 non-voting Frogs, 45 non-voting Turtles, 10 Ducks.
District 8: 52 voting Frogs, 48 voting Turtles, 45 non-voting Frogs, 45 non-voting Turtles, 10 Ducks.
District 9: 52 voting Frogs, 48 voting Turtles, 45 non-voting Frogs, 45 non-voting Turtles, 10 Ducks.
District 10: 32 voting Frogs, 68 voting Turtles, 45 non-voting Frogs, 45 non-voting Turtles, 10 Ducks.
Total: 950 Frogs, 950 Turtles, 100 Ducks
Ducks have a long history of not voting.
Even though Pond has been gerrymandered to the Frog’s favor, the math becomes a lot different when all the non-voters are factored in.
If the Turtles want to regain power, ranting about the gerrymandering probably isn’t going to help much. All the law is on the Frogs’ side.
However, the Turtles can do these three things:
1. Set up campaign offices to build and manage volunteer canvassers to find and encourage the non-voting Turtles to vote.
2. Run negative politicas ads to show all the flaws of the Frogs who have held public office. These ads will convince a few voting Frogs to not make the trip to the voting station.
3. Convince a few Ducks to vote in a Turtle way. If necessary, offer the Ducks an outright political bribe.
The Turtles can win all ten of the seats with just a 2% shift in voting intention. Imagine Districts 1 to 9 going from 52 Frogs and 48 Turtles to 53 Turtles and 51 Frogs!
Not an electoral advantage
When a political party engages in gerrymandering techniques to gain an electoral advantage, it also makes itself more vulnerable to an election loss. The other side need only adjust its campaign strategy to take advantage of this vulnerability. The non-voters are the key.
Gerrymandering is a moot point in making a better democracy. I would even call it a smokescreen, making us unable to see what is really wrong with western democracy.
Let’s look beyond the smoke.
Published on Medium 2022
