Headline: Reuters, 5/25/2026
Question and answer: America.gov
AI-generated image at right requested from Manus 1.6 Lite
Related post:
Hello, America! (Another flop from Donald Trump). (9/30/2026)
Son of CERN. A hodgepodge of what he reads and otherwise finds of interest.
We asked the America.gov chatbot about numerous false claims the president has made in recent months, including one he uttered at the Tuesday launch event itself. The chatbot flatly and correctly noted that many of these Trump claims are not true – including assertions he has made about elections, the economy, immigration and foreign affairs.
Two core concepts of gerrymandering were central to the arguments presented to the high court: cracking and packing. A third process, known as stacking, also crops up in gerrymandered political maps, but was not the focus of Gill v. Whitford.
Cracking and packing both refer to specific ways of drawing legislative boundaries with the outcomes of elections in mind. These two processes operate in tension with one another, but both can be implemented by a party in power seeking to maximize its electoral chances through gerrymandering.
Packing refers to the practice of drawing particular districts in such a way as to ensure that another party's candidate wins that seat by a tremendous margin. Although the opposing party is all but guaranteed the seat, packing makes surrounding districts less competitive, and thus tips the balance of power in the legislative body overall toward the ruling party.
Cracking involves drawing districts in such a way as to divide a concentration of specific types of voters across several districts such that they are a minority in each one, with practically no hope of achieving representation in any of the districts. This practice also helps make districts less competitive. [emphasis added]