Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

As America continues to go down the road of being more the divided than the united states, gerrymandering has taken center stage.  Gerrymandering is the equivalent of the political home field advantage where the grounds crew of the home team plants landmines in the red zone (yards between the 20 and end zone) to prevent visiting teams from scoring touchdowns.  It is neither sportsmanlike nor a process that leads to a fair competition.

The lifeblood of a democratic republic revolves around the electoral process, and the electoral process revolves around voting and having every vote of every citizen count.  Gerrymandering neuters this process because the creation of one-sided party voting districts disenfranchises voters of minority parties in these districts.  When a party in power can draw or redraw ridiculously biased voting districts to ensure that politicians in their party win elections, why should voters even participate?  Voting is vital to a representative government; it is not a casino where the house always wins.

One only has to look at the percentages of registered republicans and democrats in states and compare it to congressional representation for those states to realize that something is seriously wrong with the current process, which allows this undemocratic yet legal process to exist.

Currently, states are lining up for the 2026 midterm elections with democrats and republicans hoping to take control of Congress.  Many democrats have been clear that if they gain control of Congress, they will seek to impeach President Trump for a third time.  They will most likely seek to curb the activities of ICE in ridding the nation of illegal aliens as well as many other policies that hampered the nation under the Biden Administration.

We’ve seen Virginia attempt to redraw its districts to basically make it a slam dunk for democrats in Congress and tip the scales in favor of a congressional democratic majority.  Florida responded to do the same, but in favor or republicans.  However, this is not a new competition between the states, although states appear are becoming more bold about having their state dominate congressional representation.

California has approximately 22.9 million registered voters.  Democrats make up approximately 45% of these voters, republicans make up approximately 25% of these voters and people with no party preference make up approximately 22% of these voters.  However, the percentage of democrats sent to Congress from California is approximately 80%.  According to the Independent Voter Project, in Illinois, approximately 82% of members of Congress are democrats, despite democrats only making up 38% of registered voters there.  Are either of these situations remotely fair to republicans who reside in these states?

There are 9 states with zero republican members of the House of Representatives: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Vermont.  According to World Population Review, New Hampshire’s registered voters make up 33%, yet there are no republican members of Congress for that state.  Massachusetts has the lowest number of registered republicans among all of the states at 8%, and is the only state that has a political party percentage in the single digits, so it is not surprising that they have no republicans in Congress.

To be fair, there are also imbalances on the republican side.  According to USA Facts (https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-voters-have-a-party-affiliation/) approximately 71.42% of congressional representatives in Florida are republican, which has 41.3% of registered republican voters and 30.2% of democratic voters.

It is impossible to create a voting system that mirrors the electorate.  However, when you have percentages of members of political parties that fail to achieve dominance that merit election results where 100% of one party’s candidates are elected due to the way boundary lines are drawn up, there is something seriously wrong with the system.

In Virginia, voters narrowly voted (under a 3% difference) to approve a bill that would have flipped four republican house districts and made it so that 10 out of 11 congressional seats (resembling a lobster with the way it was drawn) would become democratic districts despite Virginia being the home to 30.56 registered republicans.  Isn’t the current 6 to 5 democrat to republican district representation in Virginia, which has over 30% republicans living there, more equitable than 10-to-1 Democratic voting districts, which was supported by Governor Spanberger?  A judge has halted the certification of these results, so we will see what happens when this goes to the Virginia Supreme Court.

Americans are at odds regarding a system where dead people are left on voter rolls, claims are made that election results are as reliable as Ilhan Omar’s financial disclosure statements.  Over 80% of Americans favor the SAVE Act to ensure that only American citizens can vote.  These are issues that need to be addressed.  Recently the Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 that racial gerrymandering is unconstitutional, which is a step in the right direction.  However, the practice of gerrymandering, which is clearly a way to skew elections, is still recognized as a legal practice.

Instead of allowing agenda-driven politicians to draw up districts that resemble sea creatures, wouldn’t it be a much better system to draw up districts based on a geographic analysis of mileage and dividing up boundary lines that are based on geometry rather than the whims of politicians?  Suppose a state resembled a square, and there were 4 districts that were based upon census data, wouldn’t it make sense to simply look at the map and make each district of equal size, which would be far more equitable than the current system, where states can align district boundary lines in many bizarre and unfair shapes due to which party controls the process in that particular state?

Tit for tat is discouraged when our children do it, so why isn’t it discouraged when politicians do it.  Many situations in life are not fair.  Someone who is four feet tall probably won’t play in the NBA, and others born into poverty have a greater uphill battle than someone born into an affluent family; however, when it comes to voting, the process needs to be fair and trusted.  One way to make it more trustworthy is to create a system where every vote truly counts and gerrymandering is the antithesis of this from happening.  When governors get into pissing contests with their counterparts in other states and threaten to make their state bend to their political mechanizations, the real losers are the voters.

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Michael Matteo

Michael Matteo is an educator, produced playwright and screenwriter. He has written or co-written 4 books including one of the first jokebooks to make fun of political correctness.He owned a business for 19 years, and has been teaching for over 30 years.Currently he lives and works as head of the humanities department at private, international school in Chengdu, China. Michael's latest published effort is a dystopian novel titled: It Began With A Whisper

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