anthropology asked
Responsibility for overseeing the implementation of election law typically resides with partisan officials, many with public stakes in the election outcome and authority for redrawing legislative district boundaries after each decennial census—in the U.S. House of Representatives and in state legislatures—is lodged with political bodies in most of the fifty states. This has long been a prominent and much-criticized feature of American politics. Redistricting is a deeply political process, with incumbents actively seeking to minimize the risk to themselves (via bipartisan gerrymanders) or to gain additional seats for their party (via partisan gerrymanders). Because of technology developments, this practice is made even easier and more accurate for its practitioners than ever before. There are several states in the process of developing reform proposals to curb these practices, such assigning a non-partisan committee to oversee the redistricting. Among Western democracies, states like Israel and the Netherlands are not susceptible to gerrymandering in the national government, as they employ electoral systems with only one (nationwide) voting district. Other countries, such as the UK and Canada, attempt to prevent gerrymandering by having the constituency boundaries set by non-partisan organizations such as the UK's Boundary Commission. Gerrymandering is most common in countries such as the United States of America where elected state politicians are responsible for drawing districts, with few exceptions.
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