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The Death of Competitive Districts
American voters are losing their voice
In a democracy, it is critical for representatives to actually represent the will of the people. To accomplish this, it is important for districts to be competitive. This forces representatives to be in tune with the will of their constituents otherwise they risk getting voted out of congress.
If you follow American elections, then you have probably heard of gerrymandering before. This malicious practice is unique to electoral systems that allow regions to be redrawn. In the United States, this is most commonly achieved in the House elections. These districts are redrawn every 10 years in each state, making them potentially subject to gerrymandering
There are plenty of tactics used to draw these maps in a way that favors one side or the other. Let’s see how this can be accomplished. Consider the following hypothetical state.
We have 50 people represented on this map, 20 of them are yellow and 30 are blue. The color denotes the political party that they vote for. We have to draw 5 districts of 10 people each. Within each district, the people will vote for one representative.
