The League of Women Voters Educates the Community About Redistricting, Gerrymandering

The League of Women Voters hosted "A Conversation on Redistricting" at the Robert C. Byrd Center on June 28.

The event featured refreshments, conversation and a Facebook livestream of a portion of the national League of Women Voters' conference in Chicago, Illinois, which featured a discussion about current gerrymandering and redistricting issues with the Campaign Legal Center's husband-and-wife team Nick Stephanopoulos and Ruth Greenwood, who both worked on the U. S. Supreme Court case of Gill versus Whitford.

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"Gerrymandering has been with us since 1813, when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry approved a bill that redistricted Massachusetts in favor of his political party," Greenwood said.

Greenwood said gerrymandering often happens when the political party in power will redistrict its state to favor that party's remaining in power. Lawyers are able to recognize gerrymandering by looking at states' districts and seeing where districts' lines are drawn. If voters from the opposite party are crammed together into a district or thinly divided between districts to weaken the power of their votes, legal action needs to be taken.