Would you expect the borders of a gerrymandered district to appear on a map as a rectangle or a circle or some other recognizable shape?

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Luca Stewart

17 August, 19:28

Would you expect the borders of a gerrymandered district to appear on a map as a rectangle or a circle or some other recognizable shape?

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Renee Day · Answer 1

No, I would not expect the borders of a gerrymandered district to apper on a map as a rectangle or a circle or some other recognizable shape.

Explanation:

Since gerrymandering is a political practice that manipulates and re-draws district boundaries for the political advantage of a given group or party, the resulting borders will have a weird shape, different from a rectangle or a circle.

The origin of the term goes back to Elbridge Gerry, who as a governor of Massachusetts in 1812 created a partisan district in Boston with a shape that resembled a salamander. Thus, mockingly, his colleagues named it a gerrymander.

Tyrese Todd · Answer 2

No, I would not expect the borders of a gerrymandered district to appear on a map as a rectangle of circle or some other recognizable shape because first of all, geographic shapes cannot be compared to simple geometric shapes and a "gerrymandered" district would have an odd and bizarre shape, just like what happened when Gov. Elbridge Gerry redrew the Senate districts map - it looked like a salamander.