Project: Texas Gerrymandering
Student Researcher: Sean Hilton
Introduction
“In the United States the incumbent political party has many powers and advantages at its disposal when it comes to election season. One such power is the ability to redraw voting districts, called Redistricting. When redistricting is used however to ensure the incumbent party remains in power by breaking up centers of the opposition party into several districts with much larger support for the incumbent party this is called Gerrymandering. In layman’s terms, the incumbent party is able to stack the deck by breaking up the opposition’s centers of power through aggressive redistricting meant to undercut opposition support.”
Research Question
“Are the voting districts in the state of Texas, a historically Republican aligned state, Gerrymandered to ensure the Republican party’s continued success within the state regarding the US House of representatives?”
Conclusions
“My findings indicate that while it may appear as though the voting districts in Texas regarding the US House of Representatives are gerrymandered to undercut democrat support in major cities, I found little evidence of this throughout my investigation. Even the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that a case brought to them regarding gerrymandering was insufficient and thus the Court upheld the voting districts that were in place at the time. Though I may not have found gerrymandering along party lines, my research hinted at possible gerrymandering along minority or racial lines however since this was not the point of this project’s Research Question I did not investigate further.”