There are three classic forms of gerrymandering: cracking, packing,
and stacking. The idea that David Brauer's message addresses, combining
Minneapolis and St. Paul into a single congressional district, is a classic
example of "packing"--concentrating a voting bloc, in this case the
supposedly liberal urban vote, into a single district in order to minimize
its chance of winning an election outside the "packed" district. The other
forms are "cracking," in which a voting bloc is "cracked" into two or more
districts in none of which it can muster a majority; and "stacking," in
which a larger voting bloc is "stacked" on top of a smaller voting bloc
across several districts, in each of which the larger bloc can edge out the
smaller one (the same principle by which a legislative majority outnumbers
the minority on every committee).
BRM
Brian Melendez
St. Anthony West (ward 3)
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