(3/2022) Every ten years a census is completed to assess population changes everyone living in America. The census helps the federal, state, and local governments determine funding allocations and determine where to focus resources based upon these shifting demographics. Another important aspect of the census is that immediately following the census states are required to redistrict specific political maps, specifically congressional, state senate, and state house maps.

In Pennsylvania, as in many states, the redistricting process has become mired down in partisan politics. Most of this flies under the public’s radar, but I would argue that fixing the redistricting process should be of the utmost importance. Our current politicized process breeds partisan political extremism, creates unrepresentative districts and leads to voter apathy. If you think we should address these problems, then I encourage you to read on.

Our American election system is predicated on the idea of one person, one vote. On the national scale this is why we have congressional and state districts that change size to maintain a reasonably consistent population. As people move, pass away, add members to the family, so to must districts realign to account for these changes. Let’s use congressional districts as an example.

There are 435 seats in the US House of Representative and they are divided up proportionally among all of the states based upon population. The current size of a single US House district is about 711,000 residents per district. As the US population shifts, so too does the number of seats each state has.

In 1990 Pennsylvania had 21 seats, in 2000 based upon population growth in other states that number dropped to 19 seats, in 2010 to 18, and based upon the 2020 census we will drop to 17 seats this year. It is easy to see how the change in the number of seats in Pennsylvania will require a change in the district maps. It is also understandable to see why current representatives would like to have a say in drawing districts. Understandable, but a little self-serving and prone to corruption.

Now comes the hard part. How to divide these new districts fairly (Spoiler alert: they don’t)? Now begins the shady side of the process, where political party leaders use every tool at their disposal to draw district lines to favor their party’s candidates. This is called gerrymandering and if you want to see some radical examples throughout the US, just google "gerrymandered districts". The best way to describe gerrymandering is that it is the process where representatives choose their voters, instead of voters choosing their representatives.

The two basic examples of this practice are nicknamed cracking and packing. I will do my best to describe these, but its much easier to do this with pictures. I suggest looking these two concepts up, as it becomes much clearer when you can see the way lines are moved. Let’s take the Harrisburg Suburbs as an example of cracking. The city of Harrisburg and the surrounding suburbs generally vote for Democrats, whereas the rural areas surrounding Harrisburg do not. There are three congressional districts in the Harrisburg area.

If Harrisburg and it’s suburbs are drawn as one of these three districts and the other two remain more rural, then most likely there would be one democrat and two republicans elected from the three areas. However, if you crack the democratic population up and put a little bit of each in the rural areas, it is more likely that three republicans could win. For those in Maryland reading this, the example is reversed by cracking rural republican areas and adding them to majority democratic urban areas.

Packing is the other tool used to manipulate districts. Same principle, but in reserve. Imagine an area with three districts where the total party affiliation is lobsided to one party, so much so that their candidates could easily win two or three of the seats. In this case map makers may try to "pack" one party into one district. Simply draw the lines to make that overall majority become a very large majority on one district, but a slight minority in the other two. Now the election could swing from three seats for one party and zero for the other, to one seat for the "majority" party and two for the "minority" party.

The end result is the same. Through manipulating the drawing of specific districts voters are put where the elected representatives want them. Once these safe districts are determined, the inevitable result is more extreme candidates running and winning office. So much so, I would argue that some representatives represent a minority of their voters, not the majority as our founders intended. By establishing safe districts the most important election becomes the primary and not the general election.

Primary voters tend to be more passionate voters. For democrats primary voters tend further to the left and for republicans further to the right. The turn out is also much lower than a general elections, thus making these more extreme voters carry more weight. In order to win a primary it is normal for democratic candidates to move left and republican candidates to move right.

Now fast forward to the general election and voters often have to choose either a far right or a far right candidate. Ask yourself how many Democrats you know that would vote for a far right candidate or how many republicans would vote for a far left candidate. I hear all the time that people want a moderate. Well moderates have a hard time making it through primaries in most districts. While a moderate republican or democratic voter may vote across party lines for a moderate candidate, the odds are that candidate lost in the primary election.

If we want to end the polarization taking over all levels of government, we must come up with a better solution on drawing election maps. To learn more I highly suggest checking out Fair Districts PA at www.fairdistrictspa.com. They have been fighting this fight for years and could use your support.