Can you tell the difference between an inkblot and a gerrymandered congressional district?

Inkblots produce random, alien-like shapes with no logic to them. The same is true of gerrymandered congressional districts, report Richard Hall and Charlotte Hodges.

(The Independent )

To create an inkblot, the type used by psychiatrists to determine the emotional state of their patients, you simply drop a blot of ink on a piece of paper in a random pattern and fold it down the middle. The result is an otherworldly shape, onto which subjects can project their own hopes, fears and desires. To create a gerrymandered congressional district requires complex computer algorithms, detailed census data and bucket loads of cynicism. The end result is much the same.

Gerrymandering, the  redrawing the boundaries of congressional districts to maximise the political benefit to one political party, is as old as America itself. The first example occurred in 1788, when Patrick Henry designed an unnatural district in an effort to defeat his rival James Madison in Virginia’s first congressional election. The practice takes its name from Elbridge Gerry, who as governor of Massachusetts in 1812 signed a bill allowing his party to draw state senate districts to favour his own party. One of those districts looked like a salamander, earning it the nickname “gerry-mander.”

Alabama 7th (Is this an inkblot or a product of gerrymandering?)

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That shape on the RIGHT is Alabama’s seventh district. Experts have identified this district as an example of both racial and partisan gerrymandering. The boundaries have been designed to crowd as many Democratic votes into one district — those thin arms that stretch off at the top and the bottom including large Black population centres. With this redrawing of the district in 2011, Republicans were able to place around a third of Alabama’s Black population in the 7th District. The redistricting also “cracked” Black voters across three other districts that might have formed another voting bloc. That might explain why in the 2017 special senate election, Democrat Doug Jones won the statewide vote by 1.5 percentage points but the only district he won was the 7th.

Today, it has become a central part of the political process. Every 10 years, boundaries are redrawn in theory to reflect new census data. Redistricting is due to take place again this year, and could have an enormous impact on the political landscape over the coming decade.

The idea behind redistricting is that the boundaries should reflect the population in order to better represent them. In practice, however, it rarely works out that way. In most states, instead of being drawn by independent bureaucrats, they are decided by the governing party in the state legislature, which means that political partisans draw districts in such a manner that makes it easier for the governing party to win.

Maryland 6th (How does this make you feel inside?)

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On the LEFT you can see Maryland’s 6th district, rotated 90 degrees clockwise. It became the subject of a Supreme Court case after residents of the district sued the state alleging that Democrats redrew boundaries in 2011 to favour Democrats. The new boundary cut an inlet into Montgomery County to include more liberal voters and moved conservative voters from Western Maryland. In depositions, Democrats openly admitted that was their intention during redistricting. A panel of three circuit judges agreed in 2018 that the district had been gerrymandered, and ordered it to be redrawn. But a Supreme Court ruling decided that federal courts should have no role to play in deciding gerrymandering claims and the effort was thrown out.

Today, although Democrats control Washington, Republicans hold more state legislatures and can therefore redraw more boundaries to their advantage. The GOP’s huge victories in state legislatures in 2010, when the boundaries were last redrawn, allowed the party to gerrymander districts across the country. Democrats failed to make a dent in that control in statehouse elections in November, and so Republicans have the opportunity to draw lines for 181 seats in the House, compared to 49 for Democrats.

Gerrymandering is achieved in two ways: “cracking” separates a particular voting group across two or more districts, reducing their political power by dispersing them, and “packing,” which is the name for cramming a particular voting group into one district so they become dominant in one district and voiceless outside of it.

Ohio 9th ( Can you spot the snake on the lake?)

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Ohio’s 9th district, seen here on the RIGHT, is known as the “snake on the lake.” The long skinny district stretches for nearly 100 miles between Toledo and Cleveland, and is connected by a bridge across Lake Erie. It has been represented by Marcy Kaptur since 1982, but when Republicans won control of the state legislature in 2010 they redrew the district into what she described as “one of the most politically gerrymandered congressional maps the country has ever seen.” It was designed to cram as many Democratic voters as possible into one district in order to help Republicans in others. A panel of federal judges in 2019 described it as "a bizarre, elongated sliver of a district that sever[s] numerous counties."

These methods create some truly absurd-looking congressional districts. There is Ohio’s “snake on the lake,” which is connected at one point by a bridge. There is also a “broken-winged pterodactyl” in Maryland.

The names may be fun, but gerrymandering is a serious business. It disenfranchises people by weakening their voting power and has been used in the past to target voters of colour. It leaves large sections of society cut off from the political process.

Maryland 3rd (Is this democracy, or a tadpole? )

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That strange shape on the LEFT is Maryland’s 3rd district. It was described by a judge as looking like a “broken-winged pterodactyl” and is viewed by many as the most gerrymandered district in the country. Democrats in Maryland’s legislature are responsible for some of the worst examples of gerrymandering. The 3rd was redrawn in 2010 to extend westward, bringing in more wealthy Democratic voters in what the New Republic suggested in 2012 as a grab for “ potential donors for a future Senate campaign.” The district emcompasses the Baltimore, Howard, Anne Arundel and Montgomery counties and a thin slice of Baltimore city. It has also been called the “ugliest district in the nation,” and is the third-least-compact district in the country.

A strange shape may not necessarily mean a district is gerrymandered, of course. And some of the worst gerrymandered places may seem quite normal to the naked eye. But a strange shape should at least act as an “alarm bell,” according to Yurij Rudensky, a redistricting counsel at the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program.

“The key is to try to understand why the district looks the way that it does. Is it following the way a community is distributed across an area? And this is particularly relevant for communities of colour that have faced residential segregation and have often been pushed to say the outskirts of town, or is it just an attempt to link as many people who prefer one party in a single district?” says Rudensky.

Texas 2nd (Some sort of animal, perhaps? )

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Texas’ 2nd district is on the LEFT. Republicans have long used their dominance in the state legislature to heavily gerrymander the district boundaries. The 2nd, represented by Dan Crenshaw, wraps around Houston’s metropolitan area in a way that secures a Republican win. The Houston suburbs have generally become more Democratic over time, prompting Republicans to create this odd, sickle-like shape around Houston.

That said, at least one study has found evidence to suggest that the more “squiggly” a district is, the more likely it is to have been gerrymandered. Silicon Valley Data Science found that “districts are less compact (more squiggly) when one party controls the redistricting process" and "electorates in less compact districts tend to be overly skewed towards one party, providing some validation that the motivation of drawing these districts is to achieve specific distributions of voters."

Ohio’s 4th (A duck and a dancing lady, obviously. )

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Ohio’s 4th district is on the LEFT. “How did Ohio’s most liberal city end up with its most conservative congressman,” asked WKSU Public Radio, in 2019. The answer, of course, is gerrymandering. Ohio’s 4th is represented by Republican Jim Jordan and stretches from the west of Cleveland more than 100 miles south to suburban Columbus, then on to the Indiana border. The district is commonly referred to as “the duck” for its shape. A panel of judges ruled in 2019 that “the 2012 map dilutes the votes of Democratic voters by packing and cracking them into districts that are so skewed toward one party that the electoral outcome is predetermined.” They added that “the map unconstitutionally burdens associational rights by making it more difficult for voters and certain organizations to advance their aims, be they pro-Democratic or pro- democracy.” The later Supreme Court ruling that courts could not decide gerrymandering cases made the ruling moot.

So how should districts be drawn? Rudensky says independent commissions — which some states are already using — are the way forward.

“A redistricting process should put people first and should understand what the political needs are for different regions of the state. And try to use that as the organising principle, rather than trying to manufacture a certain composition for a congressional delegation or a state legislature,” he says.

Texas 35th (Is that a congressional district or are you just pleased to see me?)

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Texas’s 35th district on the LEFT. This is one of the six districts that represent the city of Austin, which has been chopped up by state lawmakers to ensure what would be a liberal city is dominated by Republicans. The districts pull out from Austin into the suburbs to give Republicans control of 5 out of the 6. Federal courts decided the 35th was an illegal gerrymandered district but it was again voided by the Supreme Court’s decision that courts cannot decide in these cases.

“You don’t want individuals to be able to make choices that impact everyone where there is a really strong personal incentive to produce particular outcomes. That’s why this idea of independent commissions, composed of people who are at arm’s length from politics to take care of this task has been so appealing to so many people.”

So how did you do? Can you tell the difference between an inkblot and a gerrymandered congressional district?

Michigan 14 (Senator Zorro?)

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The hook-shaped 14th congressional district in Michigan shown on the RIGHT begins in southwest Detroit, near the coal plant in Zug Island, comes down east of the Grosse Pointes, and doubles back to corral Southfield, Farmington Hills, West Bloomfield and Pontiac. The map was last drawn in 2010 by Republicans and some party staffers were caught in emails openly gloating about gerrymandering the district, which is one of the most heavily Democratic in the nation. One email showed one GOP staffer allegedly bragging about cramming "Dem garbage" into four southeast Michigan congressional districts, including the 14th.