3 ms·

I don't think this is true. As I understand the history, some states deliberately crafted legislative districts to reduce the voting power of particular racial

I don't think this is true. As I understand the history, some states deliberately crafted legislative districts to reduce the voting power of particular racial groups. This lead to law suits and as part of court mandated settlements, the aforementioned states have to monitor racial composition of their districts to demonstrate that they are in compliance with the court rulings. In other words, some racists tried to screw over minority groups, the courts slapped them down, and race data is needed to verify ongoing compliance.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
Here is how it is used in practice: Say you have a region predominantly party X, but party Y is in power at the time of gerrymandering. The redistricting process will split the region amongst several districts, so that instead of getting 4 Y districts and 1 X district, you get 5 districts which are 60% Y and 40% X. This process is completely legal, except when the region is also significantly represented by some politically favored racial groups. I.e., we give some races special legal protection from gerrymandering, but not others.