Now Wait a Minute

This is one of the truths people use to lie with. Apparently it is circulating nationally now.

"See all this red in New England? 

You know how many Congressional seats are held by Democrats? 

21 

How many are held by Republicans? 

Zero 

Don’t talk to us about gerrymandering when this is what Democrats do"

 

Let's pause a minute. Those gerrymandered and disenfranchised residents in the large red areas of Vermont, New Hampshire, and especially Maine? Those are moose and pine trees. Some of the blue districts are moose and pine trees as well.  In the center of NH it's fish and deciduous trees. If the shading plan was different, you would see a lot of purple. 

You might be able to carve a Republican district out of central Massachusetts or eastern Connecticut, where races can be competitive. The two New Hampshire districts are both competitive, as is Maine. Both parties gerrymander nationally and there are lots of strange looking districts. Maybe the Democrats are worse. But districting is tricky, which is why the Supreme Court case a couple of years ago had math which none of the nine justices seemed to understand. If you are trying to make black influence proportionate, do you create more districts where it's close, bend white districts so that there are enough black people that white candidates have to court them, or safe districts so you can just count heads of how many blacks there are in Congress. Now factor in Hispanics, and in a few areas, Arab or Asian votes.