President Thus Made

This book recounts the elections in 2012 from different perspectives, one from an ordinary voter, one from an election researcher and one from a redistricting insider. Many officials, representatives and senators are elected from their districts. 'One person one vote principle' dictates that the election districts should be redrawn every ten years after the census. During the redistricting, in order to win an upper hand over the opponents, partisan gerrymandering is quite popular with packing and cracking tricks. Whoever wins in redistricting wins the elections for the next ten years. In many cases, the election outcomes are decided before the election starts. Redistricting transforms the ideal of 'people electing their representatives' to the reality of 'representatives choosing their constituents'.