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Gerrymandering is manipulating the boundaries of an electoral district to enhance the power of one political party over the other. The Democrats did it when they were in power in North Carolina and the Republicans do it now.

Redistricting is performed every ten years after the census is performed. New district maps are drawn for the U.S. Congressional representatives, State Senators and State Representatives. Locally, new district maps are drawn for school districts.

In North Carolina, the General Assembly draws district maps which are approved by the legislature. The governor has no power to veto or approve the redistricting plans. District maps that are considered to be blatantly unfair may be appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In North Carolina it is mostly violations of the Voter Rights Act.

The political party in power draws the new district maps to favor their candidates.

Due to technology, gerrymandering has become more sophisticated. Computer programs have become capable of evaluating all available voter information, demographics and population trends to develop district plans. The majority party uses this information to design the district maps.

The eventual goal is to create a permanent majority and perhaps a super majority in both houses of the legislature and win as many congressional seats as possible. The reward of winning the majority is the political power to draw districts that favor the party in power.

Is this a problem? I believe it is because the elected officials of the majority party are picking their voters. In other words, they’re limiting the power of your vote. It also minimizes the number of competitive districts within a state.

Does it concern me? It does because many elections are settled in the primary election. This mostly occurs when there is no incumbent running. I believe if districts were not gerrymandered, the political races would be more competitive and result in better candidates.

I don’t believe gerrymandering is going to disappear. The party in power is going to utilize it to benefit their candidates. If the other party gets in power, they will do the same. Gerrymandering is an embedded tradition in most states.

A few states have independent redistricting boards to draw the district maps. The members are typically appointed by the legislatures and tend to be politically motivated. Hence, the maps normally benefit the party in power.

Computer programs with complicated algorithms have also been proposed to draw district maps. The challenge with this system is getting agreement on the design of the algorithm. The resulting design can be just as effective as gerrymandering.

As far as what may be a better system; I don’t know. People will be designing the system and there will always be bias.

Is it possible for the party that is out of power to get back into power? Yes, of course it is. A few political issues determine most elections. The party’s stand on the issues can be perceived as positive or negative by a voter. If enough people support the party out of power, they can win. This is particularly true with the dramatic increase in unaffiliated voters.

Al Klemm is a Washington resident and former Beaufort County Commissioner.