The public is invited to a presentation on Redistricting sponsored by The League of Women Voters of Walpole, Westwood and Dedham to be given on Monday May 7th, 2018 in the Community Room of the Walpole Public Library, at 143 School Street starting at 7 pm.
“Gerrymandering: Why It’s More Complicated Than You Might Think”
given by Professor Mira Bernstein of Tufts University.
Ideally in a Democracy every vote would count. However that is not what is happening here now. Voting District lines can be drawn to divide two sides of a street into two different districts. Neighborhoods are divided by the party affiliation of their residents. The point is to pack the “opposing” residents into separate districts so votes are “wasted” while creating many more districts where the party in power has even just a slight majority. In the past few decades, big data and increasingly sophisticated redistricting software have allowed politicians to fine-tune their maps of Voting Districts with such precision that it is now common for a party that gets fewer than half the votes to win more than half the legislative seats. The resulting strange looking pictures of Voting Districts formed are called “Gerrymandered”. Obviously, gerrymandering poses a serious threat to democracy. But drawing district lines turns out to be much trickier than you might think. Find out ways in which regular citizens can participate in this process as well.
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