Gerrymandering means to unfairly change the boundaries of an electoral constituency in order to give one candidate, political party or group an advantage over others.
The term gerrymander was first used in America in 1812. The governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry, changed the boundaries of the electoral constituencies of his state in order to benefit his own political party, the Republican Party. It was noted that one of the districts was shaped like a salamander. One quick-witted person observed that it was more like a gerrymander, and a new political term was born!
In Northern Ireland during the 1920s, changes to political boundaries were introduced to ensure that elections would produce a unionist majority. If the political boundaries were not changed by gerrymandering, certain electoral areas would have produced a Catholic majority giving them political power – this was a result the unionists did not want. This system was used in particular in Derry city which had a majority Catholic population but returned a unionist majority in various elections.
Fig. 23 The original Gerrymandering cartoon, which appeared in the Boston Herald shortly after Governor Gerry altered the constituency boundaries of Massachusetts.
The impact of this was to reduce the political power of the Catholic population in areas of the North. Gerrymandering led to the creation of a Protestant-controlled corporation governing a majority Catholic population. This system of ‘vote rigging’ is no longer in practice in Northern Ireland.
Today, gerrymandering is still an issue in the United States. Modern census techniques now use computers and sophisticated Geographical Information Systems to draw constituency districts. The results of these are still challenged by political parties who want to maximise their votes in particular areas.