What is malapportionment?

Question

Gerrymandering

Answer 1

It is apportionment for the purposes of restricting voting to districts that ensure the desired outcome.

Wikipedia defines it as follows:

Gerrymandering is a form of redistricting in which electoral district or constituency boundaries are manipulated for electoral advantage. Gerrymandering may be used to help or hinder particular constituents, such as members of a political, racial, linguistic, religious or class group.

Gerrymandering should not be confused with malapportionment, whereby the number of eligible voters per elected representative can vary widely. Nevertheless the ~mander suffix has been applied to particular malapportionments, such as the "Playmander" in South Australia and the "Bjelkemander" in Queensland. Sometimes political representatives use both gerrymandering and malapportionment to try to maintain power.

Answer 2

an unusually humourous  misuse of a word

Answer 3

It is what the Democrats call reapportionment when they are not in power when the process is legally demanded by population changes as provided by the once a decade census.

Answer 4

Apportionment is the method chosen by the Founders to help ensure citizens have equal voice in Congress and was not meant to be party specific but based only on total population regardless of political affiliation or demographics. If a district is balanced (apportioned) in demographics, its representative is more apt to be fair in regards to all citizens of the district. It does not behoove a congressman to play favorites, as he must depend on crossover voting to ensure his election and not be totally dependent on “yellow dog” democrats or republicans.

The result of malapportionment can be "gerrymandering" where congressional district lines are drawn determined by criteria other than population within a district, therefore guaranteeing a "safe" congressional seat for a specific party or race and fails to equally represent all citizens within the district.

A perfect example would be North Carolina's 12th district, which on this map is the small yellow band through the middle of the state. It was carved out of counties, towns and cities from existing districts and has a high percentage of blacks and other democrats. It is the "safest" district in the state for democrats.

http://www.fws.gov/southeast/pubs/maps/n...

Since the lines were drawn and redrawn, the district's demographics have changed but essentially middle class citizens whether they are white, black, Asian or Hispanic in that district have no representation in Congress.

Specifically, one of these is the northwestern portion of Cabarrus County that at the time of the district's creation was not very heavily populated. Since that time, growth in that little corner has been exponential, as development has increased the population tremendously. Congressmen Watt's constituency, by and large, are not buying the 500,000 dollar homes. I expect, following the next census, that portion of the 12th district will be returned to the 8th district or added to the 9th district as the democratically controlled legislature will attempt to ensure the representative from that district be black and a democrat.

Apportionment

apportion v. to distribute proportionately Source: NMW

In the context of the Constitution, apportionment means that each state gets a number appropriate to its population. For example, Representatives are apportioned among the states, with the most populous getting the greater share. Direct taxes (of which there are none today) were to be charged to the states in this manner as well.

The need for apportionment of taxes, and the reason for it, is difficult for us to imagine today, but there were good reasons for it. The following is an explanation of the need for the Direct Tax Apportionment clause. It was written by Supreme Court Justice Paterson in Hylton v US (3 US 171 [1796]):

The constitution declares, that a capitation tax is a direct tax; and both in theory and practice, a tax on land is deemed to be a direct tax... The provision was made in favor of the southern states; they possessed a large number of slaves; they had extensive tracts of territory, thinly settled, and not very productive. A majority of the states had but few slaves, and several of them a limited territory, well settled, and in a high state of cultivation. The southern states, if no provision had been introduced in the constitution, would have been wholly at the mercy of the other states. Congress in such case, might tax slaves, at discretion or arbitrarily, and land in every part of the Union, after the same rate or measure: so much a head, in the first instance, and so much an acre, in the second. To guard them against imposition, in these particulars, was the reason of introducing the clause in the constitution.

http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.h...