Chasing Elbridge's Ghost: The Digital Gerrymander

Gerrymandering has been with us for centuries, but now it's digital and out of control. Elbridge Gerry's most lasting legacy may be the electoral abuse that bears his name: gerrymandering. A gerrymander is the manipulation of voting district boundaries for partisan effect. Although the term originated with Gerry's bid for the Massachusetts governor's office in the early 1800s to favor his Democratic-Republican party, the tactic it describes dates back at least as far as 1701.1 Gerry's gerrymander failed to get him reelected, but its potential for manipulating election results was immediately recognized by the electoral-victory-at-any-cost partisans as a boon to oligarchy, and it's been used to great effect ever since. The article considers computer programs that can either make gerrymandering worse or mitigate against its harmful effects.