4. Outcomes Don’t Match Votes.
The goal of gerrymandering is to make sure that votes for the opposing party lead to as few seats as possible for them.
The results are indisputable. During the 2012 election, following an aggressive Republican gerrymander in the state, more than half of North Carolina voters cast ballots for Democratic candidates for Congress. Nonetheless, Republicans took 70 percent of seats. In Pennsylvania, Democrats won about half of all votes cast for Congress but won only a quarter of the seats drawn by the Republican legislature. In Maryland, Democrats
drew one of the most gerrymandered districts in America and succeeded in winning 88 percent of the state’s congressional districts despite winning only 62 percent of votes. Illinois Democrats drew districts so effective at wasting Republican votes that they won two-thirds of the state’s congressional districts with only 54 percent of the vote.
Both sides are guilty of it. Gerrymandering must end. The time for public outcry is now.