United States
In the United States, electoral constituencies for the federal House of Representatives are known as congressional districts (of which there are presently 435; the number can be increased), while the constituencies for the variously named state legislatures go by a variety of names (and have differing numbers). Long standing practice, reinforced and modified by several U.S. Supreme Court decisions, require the equalization of populations of constituencies after each decennial census, a process known as redistricting.
When driven by partisan bodies, this process opens up the possibility of gerrymandering for political or factional advantage. Gerrymandering cannot be used to the disadvantage of any specific racial group (e.g., placing a predominantly African-American community in several districts to dilute the vote would be unconstitutional), but is perfectly legal to dilute the voting strength of the opposing party.
The lowest-level electoral districts within the U.S. are known as precincts.
Read more about this topic: List Of Electoral Districts By Nation
Famous quotes related to united states:
“Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1954)
“America—rather, the United States—seems to me to be the Jew among the nations. It is resourceful, adaptable, maligned, envied, feared, imposed upon. It is warm-hearted, overfriendly; quick-witted, lavish, colorful; given to extravagant speech and gestures; its people are travelers and wanderers by nature, moving, shifting, restless; swarming in Fords, in ocean liners; craving entertainment; volatile. The schnuckle among the nations of the world.”
—Edna Ferber (1887–1968)
“Yesterday, December 7, 1941Ma date that will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Of all the nations in the world, the United States was built in nobody’s image. It was the land of the unexpected, of unbounded hope, of ideals, of quest for an unknown perfection. It is all the more unfitting that we should offer ourselves in images. And all the more fitting that the images which we make wittingly or unwittingly to sell America to the world should come back to haunt and curse us.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)