The practice of gerrymandering — or manipulating electoral boundaries to the unfair advantage of one group or party — has a long history in the United States.

The term was first coined in the early 1800s because the rejigged districts mandated by Massachusetts Governor Eldridge Gerry were said to resemble a salamander, and an editorial cartoon in the Boston Gazette about his hijinks depicted him as the amphibian.

More than two centuries later, the nomenclature lives on, and so does the vote-consolidation scheme.

If anything, gerrymandering seems to have picked up steam lately as states like Texas, California, Louisiana, Florida and Virginia expedite updates to their electoral maps that are typically done every decade.

While the group or party tinkering with the scales to tip them in their own favour vary from place to place, the effect is the same everywhere: it’s an attempt to disenfranchise certain voters (often Black, marginalized or poor) and dilute the weight of their will at the ballot box.

Gerrymandering may be less common in Canada, where independent electoral commissions seem generally resistant to partisan interference. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have our own perversions of democracy.

Take Quebec, for example. Just this week, it was revealed that voter information cards will be sent out in French only ahead of election day on Oct. 5.

This is the first time the mass mailing has been done exclusively in French. It’s continuing fallout from Bill 96, the law adopted by the Coalition Avenir Québec government in 2022, asserting that all communications between the state and citizens be in French, with limited exceptions.

To be fair,........

© Montreal Gazette