Discover

Contents

Electoral Geography

Electoral Geography Today

Sections of Electoral Geography

Works Cited

Links

Electoral Geography

'Electoral Geography' is defined as the geographical differences regarding a region's political trend. Many researchers define electoral geography as a social science; some claim that electoral geography is just variations in voter decisions and outcomes across a region. Others explain electoral geography to employ spatial differences in political behavior or the geographical examination of elections. There are different definitions of electoral geography because there are different schemes that different countries employ for their own elections.

Electoral Geography Today

'Around the World'

Today in the UK electoral geography is studied extensively and is normally compared to the US method of elections and regionalization. By employing UK’s methods of “class cleavage”, where the conservative party earns popularity with the white-collar class and their “labour” party earns even more notoriety with the UK’s working class. (2) Comparing the UK’s method to the US method of sectionalism placing major emphasis on location; instead of basing support for a party by class, the US does so by location. Different areas of the US are more populated than others, thus giving us differences in population relating to the geography of each individual voting district. With different class variations in education, living status and culture, this is the US way of sampling each area evenly.
In England to extinguish regional identity the country was divided into nine regions. It was thought that people who congregate together seem to vote alike, rather than being apart from others and voting on one’s own opinions. This theory has yet to be proven in any formal experiment though. Even with these nine define boundaries, the voting patterns are seemingly divided between the two parties. Researchers are forced to question what causes this regional difference in voting outcomes.
England’s voting method differs from that of the US. To produce an outcome England has many different electoral systems it uses, “all voting takes place in the context of a particular electoral system. There as to be some agreed way of aggregating votes to produce a result. Votes indicate individuals’ preferences and in the public elections these have to be translated into seats by some formula”. (6) By constructing this formula they reach an outcome giving them numbers for seats in Parliament.
England is not alone in selecting their electoral system. “… A cross-national study found seventy different systems in twenty-seven democracies.” (6) When choosing which system a government will go with, great consideration has to be made. A serious question arises during this process; What should this election be designed to achieve? Some general answers that answer that important question are, “a.) To enable the representation of voters’ opinion in rough proportion to their strength in the electorate; b.)to allow for the representation of geographically-defined areas; c.) to decisively confer power on a team of leaders or a party.” (6) An election has to have a clear reason behind it, and voters have to be aware of these reasons as well.
Despite the different methods that Britain uses for election time, electoral geography still has a play in each outcome. Electoral geography is the reason that the voters chose the way they did, and why. Even if there are more than two parties to choose from, or simply a conservative and labour party, electoral geography is still a large factor.

Sections of Electoral Geography

'Gerrymandering'

One of the most influential parts of electoral geography is gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is the deliberate mutilation of size and shape of a territory to benefit one side of politics or ethnic group and hurt the other side. A once seemingly peaceful and even district can be distorted to look biased and racial after the four tools of gerrymandering have taken effect. Four gerrymandering tools that an official uses are, “ 1.) Splitting or dilution of the concentrations of the other side, so as to leave them a minority in as many districts as possible; 2.) packing or concentrating the other side in as few districts as possible, so that many of their votes are ‘wasted’, while also creating many districts with moderate margins of your side; 3.) Placing incumbents of the other side in the same revised districts; 4.) Creating multi-member districts with your party in the majority”. (4) Gerrymandering is a method based on population votes of each state, instead of popular votes and is an easy way for politicians to dictate voter outcomes. This dramatically influences election results because no matter the popular vote, the politician with the most electoral votes wins. A recent example of gerrymandering in the US was the, “2000 US presidential election, where geography was critical in determining the winner”. (8) Gerrymandering in the end was the large deciding factor, “Bush was declared elected with 271 of the 538 votes in the electoral college, but with nearly 540,000 fewer actual popular votes than his Democratic rival, Al Gore.” (8) This affected Al Gore who, unlike Bush was not benefiting from this nation-wide gerrymandering. In Florida, “[Bush] was assisted by a controversial state law restricting the ability of convicted felons to vote, which disproportionately discriminated against Democratic-leaning black voters and which did not apply to other states.” (8) This way of distorting populations and dictating voter results is not a new government development; this has been around long before the Bush and Gore struggle, leading to the history of gerrymandering.
'History of Gerrymandering'

After a salamander-shaped electoral district was authorized by Massachusetts Governor Eldridge Gerry in the 1800’s, gerrymandering was the term used for the manipulation of electoral regions. Some argue this is open discrimination, “Such discrimination is related to issues of political party, race or ethnicity, incumbent members and kind of territory (eg. Urban versus rural.) (5) This easy way to foresee the results was employed in the 1800’s and was abused once black people were given the right to vote. Even today people with language differences and cultural barriers are differentiated and grouped together to hopefully not effect the majority vote.
Earlier, during the duration of gerrymandering, once blacks were permitted to vote an effort to restrict their effect was instated. “Even after districts became more equal in population and as blacks began to register and vote, legislatures tried to minimize black representation.” (5) As these events escalated the Voting Rights Act of 1966 diminished the possibilities of discrimination. This technique has been criticized through out time, since its’ beginning. All over the country cities and groups are arguing that is not a fair approach, “…gerrymandering were routinely criticized throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the United States… 1946, in Colgrove v. Green, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a complaint that a Chicago congressional district with 915,000 people was treated unfairly compares to a rural one with 112,000.” (5) This leads one to wonder why such differences in areas are so important. Is it because rural areas tend to vote one way and people living in the cities vote another, due to cultural differences and education.
It is nearly impossible to alleviate any trace of discrimination in a geographic region simply due to population differences. On the other hand, “one party should not be disproportionately favored or hurt.” (5) The recent instance with the 2000 Presidential election and the instated law of no one with a prior felony could vote, is a law violation in itself.
Conclusion
Electoral geography is more prevalent than we think. It decides who is elected and who is forced to think about the next elections. It is the pattern of what we deiced as a nation, showing us what voters think, where they think it and why. This is an extremely useful tool for politicians because it allows them to know where to rally and what to say when doing so. Electoral geography presents candidates with the map of what issues are important to whom and where those people are located. Distortions of this process are important when deciding if it is a fair game. The Electoral College is a widely disputed factor of our democracy. Maybe in the future it will be abolished due to the advantage that certain politicians get from it, maybe it will remain in the structure. In the end electoral geography will decide what stays and what goes.

Works Cited

1. Mellow, Nicole and Trubowitz, Peter. 2002. “Red versus Blue: American Electoral Geography and Congressional Bipartisanship”. In Political Geography, pp. 659-677. Thompson Scientific.
2. Johnston, Ron. 2005. “Anglo-American Electoral Geography: Same Roots and Same Goals, but Different Means to Ends?”. In Professional Geographer, pp. 580-587. Blackwell Publishing: Oxford
3. Barnett, Clive and Low, Murray. 2004. Spaces of Democracy. Sage Publications: New York.
4. Demko, George, K. and Wood, William, B. Reordering the World. 1994. Westview Press: Oxford
5. Denver, David. Elaections and Voters in Britain. Palgrave Macmillan: New York.

Links

★ Electoral Geography.com