Redistricting is the process of redrawing electoral districts boundaries, often in response to population changes during census. Every state has its own standard of redistricting that complies with federal requirements to equalize the population, but it creates gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is the deliberate manipulation of political boundaries for electoral advantage or it creates safe seats, which creates predetermination in elections before voting. This would make our process undemocratic. Cracking is when the minority community is fragmented into several districts, none of which have …show more content…
The two basic ways to achieve this is the party list system and the multi-member district system. With the party list system the parties each list their candidates according to that party 's determination of priorities. In closed list systems, voters vote for a list of candidates, with the party choosing the order of candidates on the list. Each party is allocated seats in proportion to the number of votes it receives, using the party-determined ranking order. In open list the voters may vote, depending on the model, for one person, or for two, or indicate their order of preference within the list. The number of candidates elected is determined by the number of votes the list receives for that party. The percent of the vote for a party equals the percent of the seats that the party wins. This also allows third party candidates to win. This helps to ensure that the will of the people be …show more content…
He introduced Proposition 11 to the voters who enacted it in 2008. This put the redistricting into the hands of the citizens redistricting committee. Under this Act, government auditors would select sixty registered voters from an applicant pool. Legislative leaders are permitted to reduce the pool. The auditors then pick eight commission member by lottery and those commissioner then pick six more members. The commission is to include five member of the largest political party, five members from the second largest party, and four members that do not belong to either party. In order for redistricting plans to be implemented three members from each group must approve the plan. This did not include congressional districts. The governor did not stop there. Proposition 20, passed in 2010, gave the congressional districts to the citizens redistricting committee (Wikipedia). The 120 legislative districts and the 53 congressional districts will be drawn by the California Citizens Redistricting Commission. There will continue to be fourteen members of the commission. They still did not stop there. California has, also, changed their primary elections to break the parties control in two ways. The state had an independent commission (instead of state legislature) to draw congressional and state legislative districts. This redistricting increased the number of competitive seats between the two