Tomfoolery and Gerrymandering

 

You’re up for election and you’re up against it. Your economic policies are a mathematical fantasy and your social policies are from another century (and possibly another planet). How can you possibly win?

Luckily, in America at least, you still have plenty of options. For example, you could simply lie about your policies, and you might have a “news” network to assist you. Then maybe a like-minded and not entirely ethical judicial system will assist you in buying the election. And if that’s not enough, you could simply deny undesirable voters the right to vote against you. America truly is the land of opportunity (for shenanigans).

The above are all tried and true methods. However, if you’re a genuine American traditionalist then you’ll seek to use one technique above all: gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering is the practice of redrawing the boundaries of electoral districts to assist the reelection of a political party. To illustrate, consider the following election being fought between the red party and the  blue party. 

 

The country up for grabs consists of 14 red voters and 16 blue voters, and so the blue candidate should win. Unfortunately, not many elections are decided in such a clear and reasonable manner.

Often, as is done in Australia, the state or country is divided into a number of electoral districts. Each district is decided by majority vote and the party that wins the most districts wins the election.

This electorate system for determing a country's leader is patently ridiculous. It's a good reason why Australians shouldn’t be overly smug when considering other countries' electoral failings. But more than ridiculous, the electorate system is notoriously open to manipulation.

Returning to the battle between the blue and red parties, let’s imagine their country is divided into three electorates, each containing ten voters, as pictured.

 

The blue team will win in two districts and the red team in just one, which is still bad news for the red team. However, if the red team is in power then they could redraw the district boundaries to suit themselves:

 

Each district still contains ten voters. However, by packing most of the blue voters into one district the cunning red team can ensure they win two districts, and so the election.

Can such blatantly antidemocratic scheming possibly go on? Amazingly, yes. Indeed, gerrymandering seems to be as American as apple pie. 

The practice is named after Elbridge Gerry, Governor of Massachusetts from 1811 to 1812. During Gerry's governorship the congressional districts of Massachusetts were redrawn, with one district so contorted that it was compared to a salamander: the expression “Gerry-mander” was born. The practice itself is even older, as old as the republic itself.

Not surprisingly gerrymandering has faced many legal challenges. However, in a stunning denial of reality the US Supreme Court explicitly ruled that there is nothing wrong with politically motivated gerrymandering. Apparently that is just part of "the ordinary and proper operation of the political process". Go figure.

Gerrymandering in America has now reached the level of fine art, shamelessly practised by both Republicans and Democrats. The consequential absurdity of some congressional districts has to be seen to be believed.

 

How bad could gerrymandering get? To win an election you need to win half of the electorates, plus one extra. And in each electorate you need half of the votes, plus one extra. So, all in all you could win the the election with little more than a quarter of the votes.

True, the practice is not as bad as the theoretical extreme. Still, there is no question that gerrymandering has a huge and detrimental effect on American elections.

Of course the election on everyone's mind is tomorrow's battle between Mitt Romney  and Barack Obama. To be clear, though gerrymandering thoroughly perverts elections for the United States Congress, presidential elections are not affected. The American president is determined by the Electoral College, a separate American absurdity that warrants its own column.

What about Australia? Historically, gerrymandering has not been a significant issue in Australian elections and now there are effectively regulations against it. In particular, Federal elections are administered by the independent and justly respected Australian Electoral Commission. Australian states, however, are another matter.

If amateurs at gerrymandering, Australia has been an absolute master of the related practice of malapportionment: creating electorates of substantially different size in order to give greater weight to votes in certain (typically rural) regions. The practice is remembered in conjunction with the notoriously undemocratic Bjelke-Petersen government in Queensland, though it probably reached its peak with the "Playmander" of the 1968 South Australian election. The practice is still going strong.

The Australian Senate is severely affected by malapportionment. Of course, the Senate plays a fundamental role in Australia's Federal system and is constitutionally determined, but none of that alters the Senate's fundamentally undemocratic nature. 

Malapportionment in the state of Western Australian is worse. It is less pronounced than in the Federal Senate but it is significant and entirely avoidable. The Western Australian electorates vary in population from about 11,000 voters to 26,000 voters which, despite some curious special pleading, is a flagrant violation of the principle of one vote, one value. The malapportionment in the Western Australian upper house is much greater, with barely an attempt at justification.

Yes, the American electoral system has been politicised beyond all fairness and meaning. However, as we indicated, Australia is in no position to be overly smug. There is plenty here at home that could do with some fixing.

 

Burkard Polster teaches mathematics at Monash and is the university's resident mathemagician, mathematical juggler, origami expert, bubble-master, shoelace charmer, and Count von Count impersonator.

Marty Ross is a mathematical nomad. His hobby is smashing calculators with a hammer.

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