# DFI Special Research Request: Intentional Gerrymandering Assessment

**Country to be assessed:** [INSERT COUNTRY NAME HERE]

## Introduction to the Democratic Fitness Indicator (DFI)

The Democratic Fitness Indicator (DFI) measures how effectively citizens can exercise democratic power at the national level. This assessment focuses on a single component of the **Elections** category (25% of total DFI): **Intentional gerrymandering** — whether the electoral district boundaries currently in force for the most recent national election were drawn through a process documented to have intentional partisan or racial-discriminatory advantage as a goal.

## What this assessment measures — and what it doesn't

**Intentional gerrymandering** is a deliberate political act: lawmakers or partisan-appointed bodies drawing electoral district boundaries to give one party (or harm one ethnic/racial group) systematic representation advantage. It is investigative, not mathematical — researchers document whether the drawing process was manipulated, not whether the resulting election produced a disproportionate result.

**This assessment does NOT measure mathematical disproportionality** — the inherent property of FPTP and similar non-PR systems that produces vote-to-seat distortion even with fairly-drawn boundaries. That separate question is handled by the *Electoral disproportionality* special research request and is scored as a distinct row in the DFI framework. A country can have substantial disproportionality without intentional manipulation (UK 2024 — independent Boundary Commissions), or have intentional manipulation in some districts even within an otherwise low-disproportionality system, or both simultaneously (the U.S. House under partisan-drawn maps in FPTP states).

Researchers must complete both assessments — disproportionality in the separate file, intentional manipulation here — and report each result independently.

## The classification: binary

The DFI uses a binary classification for intentional gerrymandering:

| Classification | Meaning | Penalty |
|---|---|---:|
| Not present | No documented intent in the drawing of currently-in-force boundaries | None |
| Present | Documented intent (partisan or racial) in the drawing of currently-in-force boundaries | −100% to the chamber whose boundaries are affected |

### Why binary

The penalty is severe because the harm is severe — politicians choosing voters rather than voters choosing politicians is a categorical, not gradual, departure from democratic representation. Tier-graded penalty schedules invite endless calibration arguments about how much manipulation is too much. The binary errs toward Not present when intent isn't documented, which keeps the bar evidentiary-grounded and the methodology defensible.

### Per-chamber treatment

The penalty applies to the chamber whose currently-in-force boundaries are documented as intentionally manipulated. Different chambers have different electoral districts and are assessed independently:

- **Lower house only**: −100% applied to lower-house parliamentary scope
- **Upper house only**: −100% applied to upper-house parliamentary scope
- **Both houses independently**: each chamber's penalty applies to its own parliamentary scope. Where both chambers contribute penalties, the total parliamentary-scope reduction is capped at −100%.

Note this is **different** from the Electoral disproportionality calibration, where upper-house penalties are halved relative to lower-house. Intent-is-intent — the framework treats it as equally severe in either chamber, because the harm (boundary manipulation by partisan actors) is the same regardless of which chamber the manipulated boundaries serve.

### Both racial and partisan gerrymandering qualify

The DFI does not distinguish between racial and partisan gerrymandering for classification purposes. Both involve drawing lines for unconstitutional advantage; the doctrinal distinction in U.S. law (Shaw v. Reno line for racial; Rucho v. Common Cause line for partisan) does not change the DFI question. Researchers should not dismiss racial-gerrymandering findings as "not partisan" or vice versa — either type of documented manipulation qualifies for Present classification.

## The present-state rule

**The age of the manipulation is irrelevant. What matters is whether the manipulated boundaries are currently in force for the most recent national election.**

This rule sidesteps the entire "when was it reformed" debate. The questions to answer are:

1. **What boundaries are in force for the most recent national election in the chamber being assessed?**
2. **Who drew that specific map, and through what process?**
3. **Is there documented evidence of intentional partisan or racial-discriminatory advantage as a goal of that drawing process?**

If the answers to (3) are documented for the currently-in-force map, classification is Present. If the country gerrymandered decades ago but has since redrawn the boundaries through a structurally clean process (independent commission, court-ordered remedial map), the current map is what voters use today — classification is Not present even if the historical manipulation is well-documented. Conversely, if a country drew gerrymandered boundaries in the 1980s and never redrew them since, those manipulated boundaries are still in force today — classification is Present.

## Evidence requirements

For Present classification, the researcher must document intent through one or more of these evidence types:

### Strong evidence (any one suffices)

**A. Court rulings.** Findings by any court — domestic or international, any tier — that the currently-in-force map was drawn with discriminatory or partisan-advantage intent. Document:
- Court name and jurisdiction
- Case citation and date
- Direct quotes from the ruling identifying the intent finding
- Status of the ruling (in force, stayed pending appeal, overturned)

A lower-court finding of intent that is *stayed* pending higher-court review still counts: the stay decides which map voters use; it doesn't unfind the manipulation. A finding of intent that is *overturned on the merits* by a higher court (not just stayed for procedural reasons) does not count as Type A evidence — the legal record no longer documents the intent through that ruling.

**However**, an overturned ruling extinguishes the Type A finding only — not the underlying behavioral record. If Type B (legislative-process evidence) or Type C (public partisan-advantage statements) evidence existed independently — for example, drafter floor statements documented in the legislative record before the case was filed — those continue to qualify regardless of the court's reversal. The behavioral record stands on its own; it doesn't disappear when a court ruling is reversed.

**B. Legislative-process evidence.** Documented statements in the legislative record, drafter testimony, or strategy documents released through litigation or leaks, in which the drawers acknowledge partisan or discriminatory advantage as a goal:
- Floor-debate statements by bill sponsors
- Committee testimony where drafters describe the partisan calculus
- Internal memos or strategy documents released through court discovery
- Public statements by governors, legislators, or party officials directing the redistricting

**C. Public partisan-advantage statements.** Where lawmakers or party officials openly state partisan advantage as the redistricting goal in press conferences, interviews, or campaign communications. This is increasingly common — manipulation is no longer always concealed, and explicit public statements are admissible as documented intent.

### Supporting evidence (requires corroboration)

**D. Quantitative pattern unexplained by underlying voter geography.** A map produces a systematically lopsided distribution of wasted votes that cannot be explained by voter clustering, with the partisan advantage running consistently in one direction.

**This evidence type cannot stand alone.** Without corroboration, "unexplained quantitative pattern" relies on the researcher's interpretive judgement about what counts as unexplained — and given the binary's all-or-nothing penalty, that's too much weight on one judgement. Quantitative-pattern evidence requires corroboration from at least one of (A), (B), or (C) before it counts as documented intent.

If only quantitative-pattern evidence is available without corroboration, classification is Not present, with a research-file note documenting the pattern for future reassessment if stronger evidence emerges.

### What does NOT count

- **Researcher-side opinion or media commentary alone.** Op-eds, editorials, advocacy reports without sourced primary documents. These are useful as leads to follow but do not document intent on their own.
- **Speculation from election results.** "The map produced a result that favored Party X, therefore it was gerrymandered" — without a court ruling, legislative-record statement, or open partisan-advantage acknowledgment, this is post-hoc inference, not documented intent.
- **Structural risk alone.** A country whose legislature draws boundaries directly, or where mid-decade redistricting is permitted, has structural risk — but unless that risk has actually produced a documented manipulation in the currently-in-force map, classification is Not present. Structural risk is worth noting in the research file but doesn't trigger the penalty.

## Step-by-step research protocol

### Step 1 — Identify the boundary-drawing process for each chamber

For each directly-elected chamber:

- Who draws the district boundaries? (Independent commission, legislature, partisan-appointed body, court-ordered)
- When were the currently-in-force boundaries last drawn?
- Is mid-decade re-redistricting (drawing new boundaries between scheduled cycles) permitted, and was it used in the production of the current map?

This sets the **structural context**, which is necessary for understanding what evidence to look for. It does not by itself classify the country.

### Step 2 — Search for documented-intent evidence (Strong evidence types A, B, C)

For the currently-in-force map:

- Search legal databases (national court records, lower-court and supreme-court rulings) for cases challenging the map on partisan-gerrymandering or racial-gerrymandering grounds. Note all rulings, including those still pending appeal.
- Search legislative records (committee transcripts, floor debates, budget bills authorizing redistricting expenses) for statements acknowledging partisan calculus.
- Search news archives for public statements by lawmakers or party officials about the redistricting goals at the time the map was drawn.
- Search litigation discovery records (where available) for internal memos or strategy documents.

### Step 3 — If Strong evidence absent, search for supporting evidence (Type D)

Only if Strong evidence is unavailable:

- Search academic and civil-society analyses for quantitative-pattern findings (efficiency gap calculations, partisan symmetry analyses, wasted-vote patterns). These analyses do not stand alone — note them and check whether any of (A), (B), or (C) corroborate them.

### Step 4 — Apply present-state rule

For each chamber's currently-in-force map:

- If documented intent is found for the drawing of that map → Present
- If only structural risk or uncorroborated quantitative pattern → Not present, with research-file note
- If the map was drawn through a clean process (independent commission, court-ordered remedial map) → Not present, even if older maps were manipulated

### Step 5 — Apply per-chamber classification

Each chamber is assessed independently. Assess lower house and upper house separately if both are directly elected with their own districts. For unicameral legislatures, only the single chamber is assessed.

## Hard cases — explicit guidance

### Stacked nominally-independent commission

A country has a "boundary commission" that is formally independent, but its members are appointed by a single-party legislative supermajority, and the commission's outputs reliably favor that party. There are no court rulings (because, in single-party-dominated systems, courts may not produce such rulings).

**Classification**: Not present (binary's deliberate edge — without documented intent at Strong evidence tier, the bar is not met). Document the structural risk and the appointment-pipeline pattern in the research file. Note that this is a known limitation of the binary methodology in single-party systems where judicial review is constrained.

### Court-struck-down map still in force pending stay

A lower court rules that the currently-in-force map was drawn with discriminatory or partisan intent. A higher court (e.g., supreme court) stays the lower-court ruling pending appeal, ordering the map to be used in the upcoming election anyway.

**Classification**: Present. The lower court's intent finding is the documented evidence; the stay decides which map voters use, but it doesn't unfind the intent. The 2025 Texas case (three-judge panel ruled unconstitutional racial gerrymander, SCOTUS stayed the ruling allowing 2026 use) fits this pattern.

### Mid-decade redistricting preserving partisan composition

A country's legislature redraws district boundaries between scheduled census cycles, citing technical or population reasons. Documentation shows the redraw was specifically designed to lock in the current partisan composition or to flip particular seats.

**Classification**: Present. The intent applies to the redraw, not the original boundaries. The fact that the procedure was lawful doesn't reach the question of whether the drawing was done with manipulative intent.

### Mid-decade redistricting after court-ordered remedy

A court strikes down a previous map for partisan or racial gerrymandering. A new map is drawn by the legislature (or a special master) under court supervision to remedy the violation. The new map is currently in force.

**Classification**: Not present, *if* the new map was drawn through a clean process supervised by the court and has not itself been challenged for intent. The court-ordered remedy resets the structural picture.

If the remedy map has itself been challenged for intent and a court has found the remedy was insufficient or itself manipulated → Present.

### Country uses pure PR with nationwide constituency

There are no electoral districts to gerrymander — the country uses a single nationwide constituency with proportional allocation. The Gallagher Index will be near zero (Minimal disproportionality), and there are no district boundaries that could be manipulated.

**Classification**: Not present. Document the structural immunity in the research file.

### Country uses PR with administrative-region district magnitudes

Examples: Sweden (county constituencies), Switzerland (cantonal lists), Latvia (electoral region constituencies). The "districts" are pre-existing administrative regions, not lines drawn for electoral purposes. Manipulating them would typically require redrawing administrative boundaries through a separate constitutional or statutory process, which is institutionally protected in most cases.

**Classification**: Not present, in most cases. Researchers should still verify that no documented manipulation of the administrative-region boundaries has occurred specifically for electoral purposes — Hungary's 2011 sub-national administrative reforms, for example, had documented partisan effects on parliamentary districts. Where such manipulation is documented, classify as Present following the standard evidentiary criteria.

## Output format

```
COUNTRY: [Name]
ELECTION: [Year of most recent national election by chamber]

CHAMBER 1: [Name, e.g., House of Representatives]
ELECTORAL SYSTEM: [Type]
CURRENTLY-IN-FORCE BOUNDARIES: [When drawn, and by whom]

DOCUMENTED INTENT EVIDENCE:
- [A: Court rulings — list with citations and direct quotes]
- [B: Legislative-process evidence — list with sources]
- [C: Public partisan-advantage statements — list with attribution]
- [D: Quantitative pattern with corroboration — only if combined with A/B/C]

CLASSIFICATION: [Not present / Present]
PENALTY: [None / -100% to chamber X]

[Repeat for second chamber if bicameral with own districts]

NOTES:
- [Structural risk observations — boundary-drawer identity, mid-decade
  redistricting permitted/used, etc.]
- [Any quantitative-pattern findings without corroboration]
- [Any boundary cases relevant to this country]

DATA SOURCES:
- [Court record databases]
- [Legislative archives]
- [News archives — primary-source citations only, not commentary]
- [Academic compilations of districting decisions]
```

### Output template for N/A chambers

For chambers that don't have manipulable electoral district boundaries — fixed territorial units (U.S. Senate, Swiss Council of States), pure nationwide PR (Netherlands Tweede Kamer, Israel Knesset), or indirectly-elected chambers — render as Not applicable rather than Not present:

```
CHAMBER 2: [e.g., U.S. Senate]
ELECTORAL SYSTEM: Fixed territorial units (2 senators per state, constitutional)
CURRENTLY-IN-FORCE BOUNDARIES: State boundaries (no electoral districts)
DOCUMENTED INTENT EVIDENCE: N/A — no manipulable boundaries exist
CLASSIFICATION: Not applicable
PENALTY: None
```

The distinction: **Not present** means the chamber has manipulable boundaries but no documented intent in their drawing; **Not applicable** means the chamber has no manipulable boundaries to assess. Both produce no penalty, but the underlying reason differs and the framework cleanly captures both.

## Appendix: U.S. 2025-26 cycle (verify against current sources at research time)

Time-bound reference for U.S. researchers. The political situation evolves; verify each cited case against current court records and primary-source statements at the time research is conducted.

- **Texas** (2025): Three-judge panel found 2025 mid-decade Congressional map unconstitutional racial gerrymander. SCOTUS stayed ruling 6-3, allowing 2026 use. Documented intent: court ruling (Type A) + governor's public partisan-advantage statements (Type C). → Present
- **Missouri**, **North Carolina**, **Ohio**, **Utah** (2025-26): Mid-decade redistricting cycles with public partisan-advantage statements by state-level officials. Classification depends on the specific evidence each state's research turns up.
- **Virginia**: April 2026 referendum pending on commission-vs-legislative redistricting authority — relevant to future structural-risk assessment.

The U.S. is the most-active mid-decade redistricting environment globally and the highest-profile current case. Researchers assessing the U.S. should expect to find substantial Strong evidence (Type A court rulings, Type C public partisan-advantage statements) and should classify Present at the lower-house level. Senate uses fixed state boundaries (no district manipulation possible) → Not applicable for the upper chamber.

## Common pitfalls

- **Applying the penalty without documented intent.** "The map produced a partisan-skewed result" is not documented intent. Without (A), (B), or (C), classification is Not present.
- **Dismissing racial gerrymandering findings as separate.** Both racial and partisan intent qualify. A racial-gerrymandering ruling is Strong evidence (Type A) for Present classification.
- **Treating structural risk as equivalent to documented manipulation.** A country whose legislature draws boundaries directly has structural risk but classifies as Not present unless documented intent is found in the currently-in-force map.
- **Letting age of manipulation matter.** A 1980s gerrymander still in force is Present. A 2024 manipulation that was redrawn cleanly in 2025 is Not present.
- **Flipping classification on judgement alone.** The binary errs toward Not present when intent isn't documented. If you find yourself wanting to mark Present based on intuition or pattern recognition without primary-source corroboration, the answer is Not present with a research-file note.
- **Confusing the chambers.** Lower house and upper house are independent assessments. Many federal countries have one chamber with manipulable districts and one chamber with fixed territorial units (USA Senate, Swiss Council of States). The latter doesn't apply.

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*This assessment investigates intentional manipulation of boundaries currently in force. The separate Electoral disproportionality assessment measures the mathematical vote-to-seat translation properties of the electoral system using the Gallagher Index.*
