In a recent study, Dartmouth geography professor Benjamin Forest warned that developments in technology may contribute to political gerrymandering, the process of manipulating the boundaries of congressional districts to benefit a particular party.
Forest reached his conclusion, which was published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, after researching the history of redistricting and the implications of the use of technology.
Forest said that Geographic Information Systems, a computer technology system that allows users to view and analyze data from a geographic perspective, could politicize redistricting processes as well as simplify them.
The technology, which came into widespread use with the redistricting of 1991, has proven beneficial in many applications, particularly in voting rights enforcement and the creation of districts in which a certain minority group carries significant influence.
But at the same time, GIS presents a great deal of potential for political gerrymandering, particularly because state legislatures, which are political bodies, control redistricting in most of the country.
"There are legislative and constitutional limits on the use of race in drawing election districts, but there is essentially no limitation on partisan gerrymandering," Forest said.
"In legal and constitutional terms, political parties are basically free to use redistricting for partisan advantage."
According to Forest's study, three factors affect political representation in the United States today: the country's growing ethnic and racial diversity, the increasing amount of groups for whom voting rights protection has been deemed necessary and the precision with which computer technology can create new districts in terms of political and demographic boundaries.
Forest said that his research into redistricting emerged from his work on legal decisions during the 1990s.
To depoliticize the redistricting process, some states have established the use of nonpartisan redistricting commissions in redrawing district lines, a system that invariably still allows for some partisan interests.
Some foreign countries, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, utilize boundary commissions in redistricting in order to depoliticize the process, leading foreign residents to be baffled by the American system of mapping political districts.
Forest's wife, who is a professor at McGill University in Canada, said that her students were amazed by the amount of influence politicians have in redistricting in the United States.
"Canadian students are completely and utterly shocked that politicians have control of redistricting in the United States," Forest said.
