What is gerrymandering and what are two common methods?

• A. The deliberate alignment of districts to ensure equal population.
• B. The deliberate redrawing of electoral districts to favor a party; Methods: packing (concentrating opposition voters) and cracking.
• C. The practice of drawing lines to maximize minority representation.
• D. The process of redrawing state boundaries with international oversight.

Answer: (B)

Gerrymandering is the deliberate redrawing of electoral district boundaries to tilt political power toward a particular party. The two common methods are packing and cracking. Packing concentrates voters who favor the opposing party into a few districts, giving those districts landslide margins while diluting the opposition’s influence in the remaining districts. Cracking splits opposing voters across many districts so they are a minority in each, preventing them from winning a majority of seats.

The other options describe general redistricting goals or separate aims that aren’t about manipulating outcomes for a party: ensuring equal population is a standard principle of redistricting, not a tactic to gain advantage; maximizing minority representation can be a valid objective in some contexts but isn’t the broad definition of gerrymandering; and international oversight isn’t how domestic district drawing is typically handled.