The Problem
Every 10 years, in a back room somewhere at the General Assembly, members of the majority party choose their voters. Using powerful computers and ever-more sophisticated databases, they sit down to draw districts that make it easier to be re-elected.

They create "safe" districts where a substantial majority of voters are of their party. And they draw bad districts for the other party. The resulting districts look like tortured Rorschach tests. They don't represent a real community of voters and they certainly aren't drawn to ensure the best representation for the voters.

They've made the choice for you. When 65 or 70% of a district is artifically comprised of one party, there's no way any challenger can realistically oppose an incumbent -- so no one runs. Ever wonder why most of the time you only have one choice on election day? That's why. Only 17 out of 140 seats had real competition in 2007. In 2005, twelve of the 100 seats had serious competition.

The deck is stacked. Imagine if you could choose which cards came up when you played poker -- You'd always get a good hand. Now, pretend you're a politician and you could pick the voters in your district. Does that seem fair?

They don't need to listen to you. If politicians don't need to sweat the election in November, why would they ever have to listen to the average voter? They can rest assured that as long as they don't offend the hard-core base of their own party, they're safe. Gerrymandering means never having to listen to the average voter.

More fighting, fewer solutions. If November's election doesn't matter, the only election that does matter is the party primary. Held in June, only 10% of voters will participate in most primaries. And those that do are the most ardent partisan activists. Politicians are forced to cater to party activists to stay in office. It pushes the debate farther to the extreme, away from compromise and solutions-oriented government.