The American electoral system may have made a lot of sense 250 years ago in a predominantly rural country, but with the demographic and industrial changes that have taken place since then, it is increasingly becoming an anachronism and, above all, an undemocratic and corrupt system. As is well known, electors determine the presidency and a “winner-takes-it-all” model determines the composition of the US Congress, which only takes limited account of the true voting ratios and certainly not the distribution of the population. Populous states such as California or New York are systematically disadvantaged in terms of their voting power. And where this does not give a party an advantage, it can be artificially enhanced.

One of these “tricks” is known as “gerrymandering,” in which constituencies are defined in such a way that a minority can secure a majority. This has a long tradition and was originally motivated by racism against black populations in the southern states in order to keep the white population in the majority and in government. Read more about this in this article. Now, however, Republicans in Texas want to cement their shaky majority there by simply creating five new seats in the US Congress, thereby securing a permanent majority for themselves and a Republican US president. Democrats in California want to counter this and have also passed plans to send an additional five Democratic representatives to the US Congress in return. Conflict is inevitable. .

But how does gerrymandering work? The following graphic shows the distribution of red and blue in A. Red has a 40% share, blue 60%. With a majority voting system, blue automatically wins. If the system is changed to constituencies as in B, where each constituency automatically goes to the majority, then blue wins again in the five equally distributed constituencies. Each of the five constituencies goes to blue. In example C, however, the constituencies are drawn in such a way that there are two exclusively blue constituencies and three in which red always has the majority. This means that red wins three constituencies and blue only two.

This simplified example clearly illustrates how gerrymandering works. The following graphic shows the forms gerrymandering can take when individual states and the dominant party there have the opportunity to redraw electoral districts. They can do this in such a way that bizarrely shaped districts are created. The only condition is often that the constituency must be contiguous, which is why we often see constructs where entire thin, often only along a road connected larger parts of minority voters become a majority in that part.

There are now even mathematical methods that can detect gerrymandering. This is helpful for judges who have to decide on the fairness of newly drawn constituencies.

While gerrymandering has been going on in the US since the 1800s, this bad practice now seems to be gaining momentum. The dispute in Texas, which even led to Democratic representatives boycotting the vote and leaving the state to avoid participating, has escalated as a result. President Trump wants to secure a permanent majority for the Republicans here, as the next midterm elections are coming up in the fall of 2026, and new constituencies must be drawn by then. The Republicans feel compelled to do so because many polls indicate how unpopular Trump’s executive orders, Elon Musk’s DOGE activities, and the Big Beautiful Bill have become, and that a turnaround could be imminent that could turn Trump into a “lame duck.”