Knowra Gerrymander's salamander shape Gerrymander's salamander shape The contorted district drawn through Essex County, Massachusetts in 1812 to concentrate Federalist votes; its reptile-like outline gave gerrymandering its name.
Elbridge Gerry : Massachusetts governor and signer of the Declaration of Independence who approved the 1812 districting bill; later Vice President. His surname, not the salamander, supplies the first half of the word gerrymander.
Packing and cracking : Pair of map-drawing tactics: concentrating opponents into few districts, or splitting them across many, to waste their votes. The salamander concentrated Federalist towns into one unusable district, a textbook early case of packing.
Gerrymander (word) : The portmanteau of Gerry and salamander, first printed in March 1812 and generalized to any shaped district for partisan gain. The salamander shape is the word's etymology; the drawing and the term were born together.
Illinois's 4th congressional district : Chicago district shaped like earmuffs, two lobes joined by a corridor along a highway, drawn to link Latino neighborhoods. A modern descendant of the salamander: a thin connecting corridor keeping two populations in one district.
Compactness criterion : Measures such as the Polsby–Popper score scoring how tightly a district's shape hugs its area. Compactness scores are designed to flag exactly the kind of outline the salamander displayed.
Boston Gazette : Boston newspaper whose March 1812 issue printed the district map and coined the portmanteau Gerrymander. The gazette's editors fused Gerry with salamander and fixed both the word and the image in public memory.
Redistricting : The periodic redrawing of electoral district boundaries, ordinarily by legislatures or commissions. The salamander arose from an ordinary decennial redistricting, which is what made the tactic replicable.
Elkanah Tisdale : Engraver attributed with the 1812 Boston Gazette cartoon that drew the district as a winged salamander monster. His illustration, not the statute, is the picture later generations recognize.
California's 23rd congressional district : A district once nicknamed the ribbon of shame, stretching a narrow strip across hundreds of miles of California. Its ribbon geometry echoes the salamander's string of towns, drawn for an incumbent's advantage.
Rotten borough : A pre-Reform Act English parliamentary borough electing an MP despite almost no voters. Britain rigged representation through ancient boroughs; America's equivalent came from redrawing boundaries instead.
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