GERRYMANDERING

GERRYMANDERING Gerrymandering refers to the practice of drawing or manipulating the boundaries of voting districts to give one group or political party a numerical advantage over other groups or political parties. In addition to such devices as literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses and white prima­ries, gerrymandering was often used by southern white Demo­crats to neutralize the black vote after the passage of the Fif­teenth Amendment. Voting district boundaries were drawn so as to give whites a numerical majority over their black neigh­bors, thereby destroying any political influence the latter might have exerted. See also:DISFRANCHISEMENT.