Louisiana’s 6th would be a fairly normal-looking congressional district if it weren’t for the large 2nd district that cuts into its middle. Republicans in the Louisiana statehouse designed the 2nd district to separate the high numbers of black voters in inner Baton Rouge from the 6th district, which now contains the mainly-white Baton Rouge suburbs and outlying rural areas. In effect, this created a badly gerrymandered 6th district where voting-age blacks make up only 21.6% of the electorate—helping the Party of Trump to dominate.
Such gerrymandering is common, especially in states with a close Democratic/Republican split (such as Texas and Virginia). District maps are redrawn every decade based on the census results, usually by the party in power in the statehouse. And the process is about to start again. The new census—the first to be conducted online—kicks off March 12.
New district shapes are necessary to reflect demographic shifts revealed by the census data. But the…
Read More…
Source : fastcompany.com
Source link
