4.6 Internal Boundaries

A line that divides two cities.

Federalism allows for both local and national governments to share power. This is because under federalism, some laws and policies apply to just a local area and others apply throughout the country. Subdivisions, such as states, serve multiple purposes such as maintaining roads and operating hospitals. Others, such as park districts, are specialized.

Drawing internal boundaries to divide a country's electorate. Electoral geography is the use of spatial thinking techniques and tools to analyze elections and voting patterns. Voting districts are internal boundaries that divide a country's electorate into subnational regions, and they exist at multiple scales. Therefore, the example of electoral geography is creating internal boundaries to divide a country's electorate.

Redistricting is the process of redrawing district boundaries to ensure each district contains approximately the same number of people. Reapportionment is the process of determining each state's number of representatives in the House of Representatives based on the results of the census. A census is a count of the population, and a population count is a count of a population.

A contemporary example of gerrymandering is the recent redistricting of Texas, which was found to be in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The boundaries of the districts were drawn to give an electoral advantage to the Republican party.

Creating an independent agency to redraw congressional and legislative voting districts. This is supported by the passage, which states that some states use bipartisan committees with equal members of each party, plus independents to draw the boundaries, and that in 1980, Iowa created a nonpartisan agency to redraw congressional and legislative voting districts.