America is a fair, democratic nation that always ends up with the people’s will being enacted in the government.

Oh, how that statement feels so wrong.

Gerrymandering, which is the art of drawing congressional and state-level districts in order to benefit a specific party, has been around for generations. However, ever since the 2010 census, redistricting was constricted into a computer algorithm that spits out congressional and state legislative districts that are purposely meant to protect one parties share of the power.

Let me give you a concrete example of what happened when these gerrymandered districts took effect for the first time in the 2012 elections. Even though House Democrats received over 1.7 MILLION more votes than their Republican counterparts, they received only 201 seats, or 34 seats less than the party that won the minority of the vote. In Pennsylvania, a state which voted Democratic by over 5 percentage points, the Republican party received 13 seats versus the Democratic 5– a huge disparity over what the voters truly wanted to be represented by. This is not a democracy in the least, and it is quite disappointing that members of legislatures across the nation would rather protect a certain political party than effectively make policy that will better the US of A as a whole.

Wow, look how compact and fair this district is!!

Unfortunately for Democrats, geographic packing is part of the reason why we are so far in the minority of the House of Representatives that we are today. That is, a Democratic candidate running in Center City Philadelphia is guaranteed to get at least 90% of the vote, whereas the most Republican district in Pennsylvania is guaranteed between 60-65% of the vote. Huge amounts of votes are wasted because of Democratic voters being tightly packed into cities and thus less congressional districts, which makes the path to a Democratic majority before the next redistricting in 2020 that much harder. However, it is clear that gerrymandering has taking a significant bite out of Democracy’s grip.

In Ohio, Democratic candidates won by over 3 percent of the vote. However, Republicans control 12 congressional seats to the Democratic 4. In Michigan, where downballot Democratic candidates often won by 10 points or more, the Republican party controls 9 out of the 13 seats in the congressional congregation. How is this Democratic? How is a minority of the votes electing a majority to the House of Representatives every two years?

Gerrymandering is simply not right for any political party to participate in–not even the Democrats. Gerrymandering effectively limits the voice of Democratic and Republican lean

This looks like a fair map for a blue state like Pennsylvania!

ing demographic groups, and is causing many candidates to move to the extremes of their respective parties. Since Republicans don’t have to worry about Latino outreach in their extremely white districts, they can vote any way they wish in the House of Representatives regarding immigration action. Since Republicans don’t have to worry about African-American outreach, they can bash affirmative action and other programs that are meant to give historically suppressed demographic groups without the fear of receiving backlash at home. It’s undemocratic and absolutely ridiculous that we are continuing to stand for such an ardent disregard for the purpose of Democracy. A constitutional amendment is in order to stop the vote packing of Demographic groups throughout the nation to ensure that the American voter is being heard in our government, both state and federal levels.