Political Science
Introduction
The concept or term “gerrymander” is about 200 years old and was coined in 1812 in reference to Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry and the salamander-like district that he helped to create. However, such practice can be traced back even before the term “gerrymander” was created. For the past generations, the federal courts refused to police either gerrymandering or malapportionment based on political question grounds. Grofman defines the concept of gerrymandering to the drawing of electoral district lines so as to assign unequal voting weights to cognizable political groups and has been considered as a noxious political practice. One ...