With today’s computers and comprehensive profile databases, it’s easy to draw gerrymandered districts so that elections fail to reflect the will of the people but instead result in the outcome desired by the party in power. Such districting makes a mockery of our cherished democracy.
But throw away those databases and the same computers can design districts based solely on geography: no information about race, voting records, income, just location. Sure, some voters may feel that they were put in the wrong district, but at least that will happen in a random nonpartisan, nonracial manner and will average out. No more crafty “packing and cracking.”
Our forefathers believed that democracy was the best means to establish a meritocracy. But gerrymandering shatters that naive belief. We can, and should, do better.
— James Wang, Cardiff